On the Edge

“I don’t wanna leave you.”

        “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“This is it.”

        “Is it? Would you stay?”

I want to stay. I want to stay more than you can imagine. But when it comes down to it, you leave or I disappear. We might not be on the edge of a cliff, but my fingers are reaching their limit and I know I can only hold on for so long. I’m clinging. I’m am gripping. I am struggling. You reach toward me with shallow breath; you reach into me. I have you in my hands, in my forearms and my shoulders. I know the things that terrorize you in your dreams and in my expectations. 

Your fear of this stems from your idea of life. You think that life is the end-all-be-all. You chose this. As did I. You picked it out as the experience you wanted to have; regardless of the sadness, and completeness, and the “IS”-ness that we got. You chose this. You are full of grace. You are full of beauty. You are full of awe.  You are full of shit.

You stand there, one hand gripping onto the tiny crevice that can keep you up for a short time, the other holding onto me. You look at me as though I am Nirvana; your saving grace, your complete emptiness and your savior. But this time I am convinced that it doesn’t matter. This time I will finally be able to release you without the guilt of knowing what letting go will do to you. I know that if I try to help you up again I won’t have the strength to get off of this cliff and I’ll wither here with you; exposed and shaking. 

Do you remember the time that you looked at me like I was nothing? Do you remember the time that I stopped mattering because I ceased to exist? When you felt it, I felt it too. Disappear. Escape. It’s always what you were good at. 

I look down at the kitchen table and rub my hand over the faded scar. It was etched the time you slammed down a glass in a fit of rage. The glass was cheap crystal; the kind my mother would send in for with cereal box tops when she was a kid. It hadn’t been sentimental in the way one would think. It was an object that had been a part of my life for as long as I had been alive, but I hadn’t ever paid too much attention to it. Every time we moved I would wrap it in old newspaper, protecting it from breaking on my way to a new life. It’s importance wasn’t in what it meant, but in its unwavering existence in my life. Its loss was felt more strongly than its presence ever was.

You have such rage that things shatter around you. I shatter around you. Over and over again I sweep myself up out of loyalty to you. You are the fragile one. You have broken wings and broken feet. You’ve always expected that I will place you on my back or carry you in my arms. I’ve carried you for so long; glued together just to make a move. The seams don’t fit right any more. I am weakening. Like the glue on a child’s macaroni art after twenty years, I am coming undone. Dry and brittle. Cracked and yellowed. 

I stop. I stop knowing how to worship the sacredness of your experience and understand the vitality and honor of my own. I begin to understand that the only thing that was worthy of worship, of sacredness, is myself. My loyalty shifts. Instead of sweeping up our pieces, I refuse to shatter.

“No. I won’t stay. You won’t be my end.”

        “You don’t love me.”

“Love is irrelevant.”

        “So, this is it.”

“This is it.”