The Room At The End Of The Hall

They all love the wrong person...

Soft knock on a broken door; the metal numbers clink to the floor, one by one.
Her voice breaks like her baby blues, surveying the carpeted walls and floral patterns.

    She sits without a sound, hands fall into my lap and she cries,
    Lips trembling out words she prays her God doesn’t hear.
    “He’d frown,” she says, knowing she’s in love with a man,
    A man also in love with a man; her baby blues shattered and torn.

His eyes take in the open door; the tears she left on my shirt like those on his cheek.
Footsteps drag with reluctance to speak, the bed groans beneath his weighted heart.

    Bruises pop in my eyes, waiting to hear why he hurt him this time.
    Minutes spent proving this man’s love for him, hiding the scars,
    “He only does this with the drugs,” he confesses, almost too quietly.
    Minutes spent in my mind, knowing this man’s love for others.

His shadow darkens the door, falling on my face working to be hard as stone for them,
Piercing the silence with his eyes and nothing to say but how he loved her so perfectly.

    Loved her blond hair, radiant in the fall from his fingers to her skin.
    How her bright eyes could soften his hard jaw, take his lips into hers.
    “Things just don’t work out,” his toughest whisper lets me know it all
    His shaking hand moves from mine; “don’t touch me like her.”

Hear his back hit the door, his voice coming from the other side in broken syllables.
He can’t come in, can’t give himself to another woman this way without her

    We lay on two sides of a door as I listen to him breathe, not speak
    Hands pounding the places where mine lay like catcher’s mitts for his.
    “I never did anything but love her,” he cries to the whole world, letting me hear.
    Footsteps making their way back down the hall, back to her arms.

My hands straighten the bedspread where they cried, his hand falling onto my side.
Fluffing pillows without a glance in his direction, I knew his footsteps much too well.

    He spins me around with nothing but a finger, hazel eyes scared.
    Measuring the way my lips quivers as I struggle against tears for him
    “I don’t know why I am here,” he says, and I realize I don’t know either.
    Frozen by the way his eyes touch mine, the way his skin takes mine in.

Hair stuck to my face in the lines where tears streaked pale cheeks, betraying me.
My arms wrapped around myself, hugging my own waist the way I wish he always could.

    He pats the bed next to his leg, causing me to fall into him, bed ruined.
    He tells me he knows of my nightmares, can see that I don’t sleep.
    “You know I love you,” hanging around his ears to wait for an answer
    As his arms curl around my legs, breaking the silence with my tears on his chest.

Author's Note

To avoid confusion, I'll explain in order of stanza:

One of my best friends is in love with my other gay best friend.
The gay friend she's in love with is in love with an abusive ex-boyfriend who always cheated.
One of my good friends fell out of love with his girlfriend.
The other friend got a restraining order filed against him by his girlfriend, but yet she begs him to come around.
The man I love.....
Then me.

Hope it was somewhat worth the read....it astounds me that we all love someone so wrong so perfectly...

Reviews

[Rossen]

thanks for explaining wow

[The Cougar's Den]

I loved it, from first read through second read, after I had the details. I love it still, in its complex simplicity, in all its gloriously perfect imperfection, and yes, we do manage to love those we shouldn't...I'm so guilty as charged.

Fabulous write!

[Adam :P]

o wow interesting, very well constructed,

[Brad]

well worth the read, even in this clouded medicine head of mine at the current moment, it was relatable and i loved how you constructed it and offered it up like a marshmellow pie