When You Come Undone

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness..."
-Allen Ginsberg

Once upon a time there was a girl. There was a boy. They had a history together.

They see each other for the first time in months last night. The girl has been wondering, pondering this moment for some time. She sees in her mind's eye the idea of how beautiful this reunion could be. Then she takes these carefully deeply seeded dreams and torches them to protect herself. To end the expectations. Every single last image burns into a thin layer of soot and she wipes her slate clean.

He calls her name. She turns her back away from him. She won't dare look at him until she has to. When she turns, he is older, brittle and worn down by time. She touches his face. "We're meeting halfway." Could he even know where that line came from, that she sees it running through her ears and blooming all around her? She did not dress up as she used to with him. A thin wall of glass is beginning to form and while delicate, it is resilient and tough. It is her shield.

They speak of nothing and learn nothing of one another they didn't already know. He hugs her goodbye and she touches his hand gently before moving away. If it's for the last time. She walks away to go to the next destination. The glittering stars in the sky scornfully stare down at her, part of the plan with the gods to never answer her wishes. Never is forever.

Tonight the gods have other plans in mind. They take the girl's ship and the boy's ship and through the heavy current of the navy seas, navigate them to collide into one another. It's a quiet collision, with the wreckage being that only she can feel. They see one another across that restaurant. He will not look at her. The glass wall grows taller.

She flits about the room, unable to stay put, talking to everyone as he stands still. She shines through her modesty, through conversation, through laughter brilliant as a myriad of twinkling lights illuminating a chandelier. There is nothing wrong. The glass drops with everyone and rises, thicker and fuller when she is around him. There is nothing wrong.

He does not speak unless spoken to first. She asks him questions, he asks her some. He is drained. Anyone can tell by looking at him. There is something cold and crystallized in his eyes. For as much as she tries to look into them and pull him out, it won't happen. And she knows this for the first time, completely on her own. The gods are moving their ships together this night, but only this night. Every other night after will be their own sail on their own uncharted destinations. Maybe they will collide again but it is not likely anymore. Where he plans to go, she plans to leave before he has a chance to be there. She longs to be beyond the sea and she will go there.

The glass wall expands between them. There is so much time lost. She used to break down these walls, but today, tonight, tomorrow, and every moment after that, she won't. He must break them down if he sees them built, if he wants this ending to become a beginning. But he won't. She can see it in his eyes. It's the only thing she can see in him anymore.

Alone in her room, she sobs herself to sleep.

Love to you all,
Heather