Second Act

I can breathe warmth into your life. 

I could do it with many, but I chose to do so with you. I want you to feel that slow creeping heat in your throat after a taste of scotch. When you choke up with tears and you want to stop it, but you know you can’t. It’s been too long and is it even possible to go any longer? I want to frustrate you and make you question your best coping mechanisms that keep you perfectly status quo. 

I want to shock you into pain and happiness. My personality rotoscoping. My moods and thoughts too capricious to trace in the organized segments you need, but despise. I want to jolt you into a new script. You haven’t played this part before, though you are so well-rehearsed. This is the second act, and you are not the director. Neither am I. You don’t know that yet and you try to get me to bend, bend, bend down. I do. I would do it again if you asked, but you won’t. You come to understand that this compliance is of harmony. 

An idea is just that. Just words that we daftly trumpet to and fro. Meanwhile your monthly special has dropped off the timeline and missed the echoing from the past. Your past self bellows “I love you so much.” Uh huh. And how many times? And how many girls and boys? This compliance slices that air and time. 

This compliance is a three legged race and I wasn’t playing for the trophy. I was playing to tie myself to you. You thought it was a game. By the time we cross the chalk in the grass I’ve got you thinking and you like it. You like it and you decide to stay tied. I would cut you free in a second, though I don’t want to. Neither do you. In spite of this inefficiency, this ephemeral affection, you were perfectly capable of carrying yourself along that finish line without being tied to me. I’ll let you in on a little secret: it wasn’t the efficiency that drew you in and kept you here in painful, beautiful, meditative steps with me. And I know you enjoy the idea that everything you do suits such purpose. No, the secret is this:

It was the warmth.