The Last Hand

The game of love that must one day end.

I walk in; the starch air of an old arcade packed full of memories encases me long before your body guard forces me to stop in my tracks. Your twin stands before me, the bodyguard that’s not really there and the walls you’ve built around yourself in preparation for what this conversation will bring. I hold my hand forward in a polite shake in an attempt to dilute the situation, two centimeters from contact and the walls break down your body guard runs, making way for the small kind girl sitting scared in a booth. The cards are spread out, all ready for our game to begin. I take my seat on the other side of you as I hand you a slip of paper. On it reads “the do’s and don’ts of love.” This fresh, crisp paper is a stark contrast to your worn and tired hands. We never played by the rules, no safety nets were used, no punches pulled, and now our deck of cards are so beaten you can no longer tell what game we’re playing

     Shuffling the cards over and over again for an allotment of time that feels a lot like forever, and when I finally deal your hand you scream, rattling the walls. I hold up my deck, and hand it over to you. All my secrets, my tricks, and my intentions are spread before you until you take the cards satisfied leaving me with barren hands as I reach for the deck once more.  Round and round and round we go until the sounds of children who will never be ours laughing...fade to silence.

There is not an inch of space on our table or in our hearts. There is not a second deck to be played when we run out of cards and time. With my knuckles turning white as I clutch my final card I look at you. My words written across your skin, my kisses stain your lips, my fingers have created patches in your hair, and my need for space has left your rib cage an empty auditorium full of nothing but our secrets. I reach out as if to caress your hand and make everything okay, but when you stiffen under my touch I realize what I need to do. Lifting my final, torn and tattered card to my lips, I kiss it’s center before laying it before you.

I have, and will let you go no matter how much it kills me. As your eyes begin to bloom with realization, I watch you become the person I remember you to be. Full, happy, and without me. Whether sorrow has coated my eyes to see the person I know you will be and not the one you are now in the face of heartbreak, I can’t tell you. But as I get up from this old card table, in the arcade made for the memories we can no longer store in our dreams, I can get up knowing we tried our hardest.

Our game has ended, and at the end of the day, you play the cards you’re dealt even if you lose the game.