Untamed

If there was ever a time that I would use the word ‘hate,’ it would be for this – for this that grips me in my chest, for this that makes my heart feel as though it is beating randomly, sometimes skipping a beat and other times doubling a beat. For this that forces me to recall the wanton of it all, for this that tugs at my sleeve and his, for this that reduces me to tears. A hollowed memory of what used to exist and what will never change, regardless of how much effort and emotion is ever poured into it. My voice is stifled by the absence but always continues to desire an outburst, to yell, for the first time in over a year. ‘That’s not going to change anything, and you know it,’ the voice of reason told me and it was right – I do know it.

Perhaps, foolishly, I despise him for the way that a feeling will slowly seep in through that hollowed memory. Despise him for being able to fill that hollow successfully, in the face of my own attempts to do anything to it myself. Yet I wonder if it really is all down to me, with the blame resting firmly on my own shoulders. My face remained dry whilst his was soaked with several hours’ worth of tears, even days later. It was difficult to understand how I could sit there and remain detached, and how I could simply walk away without saying much at all. It made perfect sense to me back then, but now, when I find myself flicking through a book and changing the meaning of “flicking through” to “stoping and reading,” it is difficult for me to understand.

I enter a conundrum, an infinite loop that will only continue when it is solved with the simple solution that on first glance doesn’t seem so simple at all. I don’t want to be caught on the things that appear to relate, I don’t want to stop every so often in the middle of life’s road and feel as though I’m about to cry. I don’t want to think that what he did is a most likely possibility to happen again, I don’t want to let the latter be purely because I’ve been made slightly paranoid, guarded and cautious. I don’t want to feel annoyed every time it interferes with my life, with us, when I don’t want it to. Most of all, I don’t want to let him feel as though anything he does is a comparison, or as though he can’t be believed or trusted by me.

A simple solution that I know must be done.

I take my time playing with the small golden balls that are threaded on some wire along the frame of a small box, which ironically is just the right size. Letting them go forever is something that I would much rather do, but for some reason I find myself unable to go through with it. Instead I sit there, aligning the golden balls in perfect symmetry to each other and finally place the book inside, closing the copper-framed lid. “I’m hopeless at keeping secrets from you,” were the words of the past trying to make one last attempt to stop me from implementing the simple solution.

‘It’s never going to not have happened,’ and with that, I put the past away and left it there.