12-0706, 0823.
Please don’t make this harder than it already is.
It’s hard enough moving through my empty days without you.
I don’t make it any easier on myself thinking of you with every waking moment, even though I tell myself not to, force myself to shake any lingering thoughts of you, your breath on my face, your hands on my body, your lips on mine…
I can’t deal with these constant memories of you that my subconscious mind thrusts upon my existence at every opportunity, at every moment of weakness when my defense fails me.
The foundations of the walls I am trying to build around my broken heart are built on unsteady ground, built on territory not quite ready to heal or be vulnerable yet again.
Any passing thought of you and the meager stones I’ve haphazardly collected to throw up these tired walls begin to tremble, the cracks ever moreso apparent as the quiver in my aching heart intensifies with my painful longing for you.
I want to forget you.
I want to forget us, forget the last few weeks, forget everything that’s happened between us and go back to the start, back to when I was filled with wild hope and silly, abstract ideals of what romance and love meant to me before you breezed your way into my life, before you found a way to burrow into the depths of my heart and made yourself a home there.
I want to forget you, and you’re not making this any easier for me.
I used to be a fortress, a stonewalled castle in the hidden depths of the woods, a lost kingdom among thorns.
I was isolated and safe from those that wished me ill harm.
I let weary travelers every so often into my place of refuge, let them lay their heads there for but a moment until they found what it was they needed, and promptly sent them back into the world, away from the real treasure I kept buried under lock and key far from where I would allow them to go.
The secret chamber where I kept my heart of hearts was forbidden to anyone I allowed into my castle, for those who’ve came before had pillaged and plundered what bountiful treasures I had possessed and left nothing for myself to keep.
So I closed my doors, drew in my gate, and let the thorns overgrow to keep more people from coming in and taking any more of what little left I had to offer.
And you came.
Noble huntsman, fair-faced and world-wisened, but all along a handsome king in disguise.
To you I decided, Yes, for him I’ll let my bridge down, come stay and rest your weary head.
But to the nature of your design, or by a small chance of happenstance, you’ve found your way into my heart of hearts when I wasn’t looking and saw what I had lain there.
And you were gone before I knew what happened.
Out the gates and back into the world, and neither you nor I saw the treasures that had found itself in your back pocket.
Keep this piece of me you took, and let it be a reminder of our brief but fateful encounter, and I will always know that I still have treasures to possess.
But please, I beg of you, do not try to come back for more, for I know I no longer have much left to give.
A cor cordium,
J.
