Cruel Catharsis

These nights are restless, and I’m drowning in the covers. 
With a fitful body and a feverish mind, 
accompanied by a sense of regret and despair, 
not able to come to terms with why you aren’t alive. 


As I lay in the smothering, unadulterated darkness, my mind travels back to our nighttime conversations; 
of how you claimed some seraph up above was robbing us of our love. 
And though I would remind you that I still loved you, 
the words I offered as an antidote to your trepidation of our love slowly fading mattered not when given, due to the fact that your qualm was almost arbitrary: 
that our love would surely come to die and rot. 


I gasp for breath as I break the surface of the sheets, with a cold sweat and a broken heart, 
wondering if this pain could possibly be evanescent… 
though I hesitate to entertain this thought. 
Can there be light without day? 
for now I live in perpetual darkness, since the sun is gone and the stars don’t shine. 
Now I am the one who curses the seraph, 
for surely he is laughing down at me. 


Some days my mind dolorously replays the moment I met you, 
and the days we would pass together. 
And my heart cries. 
I remember how I’d look at you from across the room, 
only to divert my shy gaze when you’d catch me. 
Or, I’d pretend to look intently at the wall as if the secret to winning you was written in the cracks. 
Then came the parties, with copious amounts of alcohol, 
and we would giddily laugh like the drunken fools we were, 
and spend the night conversing, regardless of the hour. 
I remember when I first pulled you in to kiss me, 
and how no amount of drugs or alcohol could still the nervous trembling of my hand. 


Then came a day, 
after years of our love, 
when you started smoking and quit sleeping. 
You developed dark circles underneath your now weary eyes, 
and I could see that the joy of life was slowly drifting away from your grasp, ever so evasive. 
Now when I leaned in to kiss you, or tell you of my love, 
you’d sit there like a statue and smile feebly. 
The scars on your arms brought tears to my eyes, 
and no amount of begging or pleading convinced you to tell me why. 


I watched as the darkness stuck its sadistic foot in front of your already scrambling legs, 
and instead of regaining your balance, 
you gave in and fell, 
only to be dragged away by your ankles into the abyss to be devoured. 
A morbid and cruel catharsis; 
the woman I loved changed from a dove to a raven, 
and I was left breathless and full of sorrow, 
for I wished to help but you kept me at arm’s length. 


Head hung, tears flowing. 
I think of our final moments… 
how I told you I loved you, but you didn’t say it back, 
and you mumbled that you had to leave. 
So I said nothing as you walked away, 
angry and on the verge of tears. 
As the door closed shut I could have sworn I heard the equivocal word “Goodbye”. 


When I heard you had taken your own life- 
how you drove your car off of a bridge- 
I felt my heart being ripped from it’s imprisoning cage of bone. 
A part of me died that day. 

Just know this, Love: 
someday soon I'll see you. 
Just a matter of time till the tide of the madness takes me, 
and I never resurface from the sweaty sheets or covers.