Ignis Fatuus

Twenty years connected. 

Twenty years the push, pull, hello goodbye, yes and no. 

Twenty years, the passion.

Twenty years, trying to understand what begets cruelty.

Twenty years, found when hidden.

Twenty years, a haunted halfway house. 

Twenty years of these stupid little crumbs. 

Twenty years of dangled apologies. 

Twenty years of warnings. 

Twenty years of maybes. 

Twenty years of possible regrets.

Twenty years of trying to be everything.

Twenty years trying to prove. 

Twenty years, an oath.

One year of actual truth. 

One year processing an untruth.  A narrative buried so deep, it is cemented in ore. 

One year, the fall out.

One year stubborn, willful.  I am here. I am real. I am genuine. 

One year holding breath, tensing, still giving.

No more years. 

Realization: playacting with ignis fatuus.

Glass is too benign to describe those shards, the unraveling, the vacuum, the blank space. 

No more blood or bone sacrifices. No more balmy water for tears or devotion. 

I am not the villain and never was. 

You were my twin moon. You were my songs.  

This is a death I can't even mourn openly.  

How do I tell the world I became half, severed?  

I sat a version of shiva alone because there is no recognition or bereavement when you mourn a wraith, a trickster who hides behind many masks. 

Instead, blame and sharpness. "You should have known better. You're stuck."  

My fault again. 

But oh how I delighted in that game! 

There is no burial. No Body.  No final resting place to leave behind.

For what you have stolen from me, I do not forgive. 

For believing in you, I will find a way to forgive myself.

And one day revel in the wicked delight that you and I are different.  And it is those differences that offer me life. 

Embedded: Bat For Lashes, All Your Gold