For Once, For Last

After I found out everything. After I told you all I knew. I told you to sleep in the basement. That is what we did when we fought- one upstairs, one downstairs. For once, this time, you couldn't stand entirely on your stubborn feet. Instead, you stood in the doorway of this same bedroom and said, "Can I please sleep with you?" You never did that in a fight. You use to say nothing and hide behind a wall. A wall that you have since become.

So, I let you sleep beside me.

For once, you grasped my hand so tightly, like you knew it would be the last. Then you said, "I do love you." With my last ounce of energy, I let the swollen tears race my face. For the first time, I couldn't say it back.

I told you I loved you first and now you say it last. A first and a last, is only once.

That night I didn't sleep. I was seeking and searching for a way to be with you. For a way not to tip over and stay full.

In the morning, I with deprived eyes; was at the sink looking out this very window in this kitchen. You came from behind and wrapped your arms around my waist so tightly. The last time. And much like the circled house we lived in- I would repeat and let them race. I would let them swarm my face.

I did not embrace you any longer.

I don't know if you loved me fully or to what I know you have the capacity for. I just know that I loved you.

Like the way you should love yourself. The way that no one could love anyone else. That is how I loved you.

I can stand and yell, "It was all a lie!" This ending you gave us. An ending when I thought we were just getting started. I could stand but I rather whisper, I rather sit. I rather because what I experienced was real. Then, I was only ever yours. You were only ever mine.

I see your last efforts to convince me that it was love. Love is not cut straight, it is cut throat. It is not about how you get along when you are getting along. Love is about getting along when you can't.

It is more about getting through the hideousness than about sitting in the pretty of it. For us, it would get uglier and so your last efforts became just that- your lasts.

A tipping point and then you spill. No longer wanting to fight for me. Then, in doing so, no longer wanting to love me. All because you have a tipping point. That became more apparent than anything. For once, I saw what was in your lasts- emptiness.