Forgive Me, For I Have Fallen So Low

I perfected the art of separation,

a safe distance and a wandering mind.

Protected, shielded by my endurance,

my ability to dismiss affection and resist temptation.

Temptation to love, to invest my time in another,

invest myself in vulnerability.

Walls impenetrable, impervious to the winds of emotions,

impervious to the force of affection.

I could laugh, I could enjoy time spent with another,

but always safely from a distance.

Always from behind my wall, poking and prodding safely with a stick.

But walls are meant to be broken.

Words are meant to be spoken,

and here I was,

face to face with another human being, climbing my own damn wall to be near her.

I pulled brick by brick apart and fashioned a seat beneath her feet.

Every word she said and every way she said it gave me thrills,

excitement unimaginable

foreign and illusive.

Her tears created storms, splitting cracks down my wall,

freezing and expanding,

freezing and expanding until each brick loosened up and it began to sway.

Teetering and tottering,

a former shell of itself the wall stood still, but vacant.

A stick laid dormant on the other side,

no longer granting safety, but rather a memory of former time.

When she stood, I stood...

like a well trained dog I had learned her movements,

I studied them.

I studied everything about her,

she was the most interesting thing I had ever seen.

We walked off,

the wall disappearing behind me,

along with every care in my world.

The shake lost in my hand as I held yours.

This person had changed me,

for better or for worse.

She changed me.

I could feel, I could hope, I could see into the god damn future.

I lived in the future everyday,

as long as our hearts beat to the same metronome I encompassed the future.

Our future.

Everything made sense.

But smiles fade.

Jokes grow irritating,

touches of affection turn ruthless,

desires for attention turn needy and desperate,

asking for kiss is cause for rolling eyes.

The love bird that once was so sought after, so desired was now

undesirable,

through the very same love that once put voice in his throat.

The same love that told the future,

now was a thing of the past,

something shrugged off,

something part of the walls.

Somebody part of a wall,

that damn wall.

As far as had traveled it never occurred to me

I had left my one wall,

to be absorbed by someone else's.

Destined to be sucked through to the other side,

a journey to the wall,

like a lamb to the slaughter.

I loved too hard,

fell too fast.

Abandoned on the other side of her wall,

a string tied to my thumb.

I walk back,

tied to her string,

unraveling slowly with each step.

I travel the only direction I know,

backwards.

Back to my own wall, a fortress turned ruin by her presence,

or by my desire for something real.

Something tangible, something I can feel in my chest.

I feel it,

I feel it all too well.

I close in on my wall,

teetering and tottering,

wavering and fragile.

I should have known,

if only I had glanced back to what I had once created I would've known what i'd soon become.

But I didn't.

I continued to look at the back of her head, mesmerized and smitten,

like an amateur.

Like a sucker.

I kneel down at the seat,

pulling it apart,

brick my brick,

trying to push them into their former homes,

but they don't fit,

I don't fit.

I have crossed over the wall and that can never be undone.

For better or for worse, that can never be done.

Passing through the wall the string grows tight.

I hold my hand over the wall,

the rest of me remains safe.

It's familiar,

but far too foreign.

My head feels cold against the bricks,

an old form of comfort sweeps over me,

calming my chest,

until the string is tugged.

Each time the small thread moves my chest grows heavier.

The bricks peer down,

the creation and the creator.

Forgive me, for I have fallen so low.