Good Bye

I’ve already said good bye. Then I bend my fingers and poise them to type one final word, but it’s as if I can’t bear to say another word to you. It’s so different between us, so devoid of emotion, of the honesty we’ve always shared. Can emptiness hurt? I’ve never thought so before but now I know it does, especially when it follows something once so vital and tangible. Something so fucking special and rare, even you wouldn’t deny that, has become extinct and I miss it with the gravity of my entire being.

No more words. I sign off and push the lid of my laptop, as grey as this rainy day, closed for the afternoon. I make it around the corner, nearly to the stairs, before I realize my eyes are burning, my throat filled with a lump of emotion - but it isn’t a lump, that would be inert, inanimate and this is, is…alive, it breathes when I do, it has a center that throbs along with the pulse of my heart. I push it and my tears back, knowing that if I don’t gather and amass my army of self control, I will simply dissolve, right there at the top of the stairs, right there in my office where people still mill about. My soldiers are forever vigilant; they refuse to allow the well of tears to overflow condemning me to the concern and worry of my co-workers. As if any of them could understand what I barely manage to comprehend. My emotional army pounds at the thudding mass, pushing it down, out of my throat, where it threatens to choke me, and into my belly.

Why? Why? I ask myself. Why him? Why allow him to do this to you?

So you once had something special, I respond, things change. Life changes. He’s moved on to a different place and so should you.

Why him? He of all men, he’d never have been for you even if every other factor was different; he’d never have made you happy nor you him. The best you could have ever hoped for was a short intense affair, a passion that would burn as bright and hot as the sun but with all the longevity of a match. Perhaps what you did have was better. Think of that. It lasted longer than anything physical would have, you know that.

I know that, I reply with all the common sense I can muster but with the point of a blade prodding insistently at my heart. But friends, to be friends, that’s what I always wanted. More than that was just a fantasy, a lovely rich embroidered tapestry of a fantasy. It’s the intimacy I miss. Oh god.

Don’t. Just don’t. You’ll cry.

Maybe I need to.

Not here. Go home. Get home. Examine that mass that we’ve helped you conquer. See what it consists of before you fall apart. Do that. Do that now.

So I sit here now, on the train attempting to analyze this seething mass that has been growing for months. It’s an accumulation of small disappointments, of unrequited longing, and of being on the receiving end of intentional cruelty and worse, apathy. Yes, it is all of that but mainly it is the hurt and sadness of knowing that from the beginning you knew you’d never change your mind, you’d never give in, not even a little, you’d never be there when I needed you (something I so foolishly had convinced myself I could rely on). My boundless optimism seems distinctly finite at the moment.

Through these months of inattention and longing I’ve thought many times of ending it, what ever exactly it can be defined as, not out of anger or hate or cruelty but out of the knowledge that I deserve better. I deserve someone who can give without worrying what exactly is the point of giving. I deserve someone who can trust, and while you have much to protect by now you should know I’d protect you with as much ferocity as I would my own child. But none of it matters to you, at least not enough to make you open that door and let some light into your heart. You claim to want it, to want peace but if you did you’d take what unexpected grace the universe has granted you instead of letting it drift away. You’d take it without so much concern about what the outcome will be; you’d stop applying the logic that makes you such a success in business to your personal life where it hasn’t worked so very well.

I’ll probably love you forever and that’s why I can’t do it anymore. I can’t wait and hope you’ll one day wake up, see a sliver of sunlight streaming and let it illuminate your heart as well as your room. I can’t wait and hope, as I have for these years, that you’ll finally believe that my agenda has been only to know you, to be a small part of your life, to be what I thought I truly was, your friend. It’s not happening, is it? You can’t allow it. You consciously chose this way and zealously defend your position.

I want something so very small and so very natural. To be your friend, like normal people are friends; friends that can call each other when there is something exciting or wonderful or concerning or frightening to discuss.

But it’s not small to you. It’s too much for you and too painful for me to watch you just slip away. Even now, a day later, once again on this train, tears fill my eyes to their reddened brims and that mass in my throat chokes me. As always the choice lies with you, in your dominant and capable hands.

I already know what your decision will be. I’ll miss you forever. My militia has deserted me.

Good bye.