Once a Man Held Tight a Goddess

There’s this girl and she blends into the walls. Her camouflaged cheeks and magazine heart knew the meaning of war long before we went over it in World History.

There’s this girl and her fingers bleed red. Her teeth a tint of off white from the blood that leaks from her picked raw fingernails, from heart to hands, she bleeds, passionately.

There’s this girl and on her skin lies tattoos of notebook paper, and when her mind wanders she writes, pressing the ink into her skin to make the words real until she is a walking monologue screaming for help.

There’s this girl and if I didn’t love her so much, I would hate her. Her eyes reflect the parts of me, I would rather not see and to my mouth of lies she kisses me, stealing the words no one has ever heard before.

This girl doesn’t have a name anymore, after our first introduction she squeezed my hand tightly with a glint in her eyes, I began to call her all of the magnificent places in the world I knew I would never see. Peru, Bermuda, Egypt, Mariana... Heaven. I muttered her names under my breath, turning silables into memories for I know we would never make our own, her heart could not be held by a man like me.

On our first date when I took her to the top of the mountain during a meteor shower, she clung to my hand as her body opened up to the sky. When I looked down the steep cliff before us I asked if she was scared, scared of falling. She replied upon looking at me, constellations in her eyes, that I was the kind of man that could keep her from flying away; I was the anchor of a helium ship, the feather holding up the boulder, the match that sparked the flame; I was the man that held tight a goddess.

Twenty years later, and she still paints constellations in the corners of my greatest fear. Starless nights, and broken songs, I have lived along side her, and I want many more nights to come, but some dances have to end. Her hand squeezes mine with as much strength as she can muster, and she apologizes in a voice as empty as I’ve ever heard. She tells me that she’s glad she didn’t fly away, and mutters weakly that she just can’t stay. For the first time since our night on top of that crumbling mountain, a tear streams down her face.

“I’m scared,” she says.

And before I can tell her that it’s okay, she stops me.

“I’m scared...that you’ll hate me for leaving.”

I clutch her hand firm to my chest, as I hold back the tears that threaten to beg her not to leave. Instead I tell her a story, of an angel who graced the life of a spineless man. The starless nights turned beautiful, and the broken songs turned tuned. I whisper our love story until her eyes shut, and her breathing slows, and with her last grace of air on this failing world I tell her,

“I love you, my angel…-You can fly away now, it’ll be okay...I’ll be okay.”

THE END