The creatureโs skull on the wall looks at me through empty sockets above a snout. Itโs not quite a deer, itโs antlers are more spindly like spider legs. Eyes stuck into the wainscoting follow my movements. Human. At least they were. I stand at the bottom of a hallway that draws upward like a well. Pink wallpaper stretches like skin to coat the innards. There are five walls in the shape of a pentagon, a crooked door adorning each.
โCan I walk through them?โ I ask the skull.
I hear dry bones crackling as its jaw moves. โYes.โ
My hand reaches for the third because I know what lives beyond the frame. Itโs been years, and they pass like seasons. Cyclical and fleeting. I miss you.
Itโs dark inside the room where you live, in this rendition of my memory. A lone candle in a window lights the space, but I cannot see you. I sit on the edge of a old springy mattress settled in an iron bed. I know youโre there, on the other side. I wish I could be near you, but I keep my distance. Itโs better this way (is it?).
We donโt speak. Weโre just there, experiencing this space in the same moment. And that alone is intimate in ways Iโd like to name. To make something inconsequential feel extraordinary. I closed the door on us, the skull is behind it. I canโt see your face, but I want to. I know itโs for the better (why?).
โI love you.โ
I say these words into you. They pour from my uttermost being like honey from a comb. Slow and sweet. They stick to you and you let them.
Iโve said it in other ways too. Like how you feel warm and when Iโm cold, when you let me put my mind in your hands, when I donโt understand but youโre patient with me, when I cry and somehow itโs all okay, when the world is chaotic and youโre the only place that feels like home.
I desire to hear your voice, desperately. A singular vowel is precious silver and a word is gold. Conversations are priceless. I wouldnโt trade them for a thing. The way you sound is my favorite music. Your laughter is a song. I wish youโd talk to me.
I wasnโt expecting to want to choose you over and over. To adore you, with all your sides. In the valleys I love you. On the mountain peaks I love you. You donโt scare me away in the storms. Iโll stand with you in the rain. When lightning strikes, youโll find me beside you. Iโm forever altered. Youโre all I want, and youโre who I canโt have. Iโm doomed to know what love tastes like. I savor us; the memories are saccharine. I donโt wish to forget. To lose them would be to lose you. And youโre mine, still.
We found each other. I wanted to be yours. And I was, but you didnโt know it. Iโm a fool and a masochist for reminiscing but I canโt help but look back. The recollection turns me to a pillar of salt. Looking toward the future I melt from it and rub the remains into my wounds.
I cling to the memory, but you push me out as a defense. Iโd believe I have poison in my veins instead of blood, but Iโve bled for you and itโs red. Itโs an ache beyond compare, Iโve not felt this way before. A dull knife to the bone and I let it carve away. Iโm always feeling the weight of what was and spiraling. If you feel it as well, you donโt say. But thatโs okay, I cannot force you to be in love too. I gave it all to you and I donโt regret a thing.
I close the third door. My hand hangs limp around the handle. I stand there for minutes, hours, days. Iโm not sure. There is no clock on the wall, no rhythmic ticks to tell the passing of time.
โThere are other doors.โ The skull says to me, empathy in its tone.
โI know.โ I reply. โI really like this one, though.โ
The eyes in the wall watch me, but I donโt care. I wait outside the third door hoping youโll open it from the inside, knowing you wonโt. And yet Iโm here, and Iโm not going anywhere.
WOWWWWW!! I need moreโฆ. this is such incredible work emmaaaaaโค๏ธโ๐ฉน
OMG HOW DID I NOT REALIZE YOU POSTED THIS??? it's really really wowie good