A Kiss to Build A Dream On

Follow up to "Welcome to Heartbreak." Pretty much a beautiful accident.

There was nowhere for me left to go. The run into this city had gripped my soul and left nothing more than a shattered body. This is what I deserved. This was my own private Hell. Nothing hurts more than realizing that in the end, nothing mattered.

Not anymore... 

I knew it. The notion floated somewhere between this deserted city and ether, ever taunting me, ever laughing. Was this my punishment for turning my heart to stone? Was this what all driven men come to in the end? I had to know the answer. I had to continue.

The beads of sweat only aided the frigged wind chill my very soul as it brushed through the dusty streets. There were no cars, no people, no signs of life. This was my city. I stood like stone as my eyes pulled away from the reality. The pain that resonated through my bones was nothing compared to the one that dripped from my mind. It was that harsh reality that this was it. I knew this was the end all along. Still...I ran here.

The empty buildings towered over me in the early morning sun - foreboding, recklessly silent, my buildings. I was to muster all my strength to take those first, quiet steps through the middle of that street. Three painful steps was all I got.

You know why you're here...

This was to be my grave. A city of my own making. Constructs of steel and glass yet for all the majestic beauty they emanated, they contained not a soul. They dared not greet a soul by my own. I know this because I told them what they know. They were as much as me and I was them. Heartbreak was my mother, my father, my lover...my son.13

The time had come. I laid down in the middle of that empty street - the cold concrete licked my wounds and suckled my breath. As my eye turned up to the morning sky, my mind raced with thought, with reason. Yet there was no reason nor science that could explain why I am here. Then it dawned on me.

Welcome to Heartbreak...

This was where I belong. This was what I wanted. This was my punishment. This was me. I sucked my last breath that early morning in the shadows of my own constructs. There was no tunnel of light, no paradise to welcome me home. I was home. Yet as my thoughts slowed I realized that everything was here for a reason. I remembered what that reason was when I drew that last breath in the shadows of everything I worked so hard for.

This was the kiss I built a dream on...

Author's Note

This came by accident when I put a "to be continued" at the end of "Welcome to Heartbreak". Not too sure about this one but it also got some good reviews. Not sure what draft I'm on for this one...maybe 2nd or 3rd.

Reviews

[roarke]

The two pieces join together perfectly. A clear, visceral portrait of "feeling." I have to write a lot of drafts before my pieces come together, at draft 5 I can usually make heads or tails of it and then I can start the serious work. This piece is like a modern day E.A.Poe in it's cerebral intensity. Keeping a balance between "inside" "outside" narrative perspective and stimulus in a piece like this is the challenge. Great visual imagery.