The Last Time I Saw Love Was On My Doorstep On A Sunday Afternoon In Winter. She Looked Pale And Weak.

The last time I saw love was on my doorstep on a Sunday afternoon in winter. She looked pale and weak. Clutching a threadbare beige coat, arms hugged around her waist, already wilting daisies in hand. I could see a red stain blossoming behind the coarse material. I peak out the curtains, but leave the door closed. She catches a glimpse of me in the window and something like hope flickers in her iris. 

I let the curtain fall, my heart in my throat, then in my palms. It’s beating irregular. Not quite steady but not quite moving to the symphony in used to when love arrived. Love lays a palm against the front door. She calls my name. Barely audible over the wind but how could I mistake her voice. Seeping through the entryway and into my skin. 

My heart is still in my hands. I can hear love’s laboured breathing, just an arm’s length away. All I would have to do is turn the handle, a hopeful voice whispers. But I know this is a lie. Love is bleeding out on my door step. She is dying. I would have to do so much more to save her. Again. And I know that is why she is here. Because she cannot save herself. The greying supermarket flowers in her fingers are not just an offer, but a plea. 

I want to say “Love, no,” or “Love, I can’t,” or “Love, I’m sorry,”. I want to open the door and take her inside and treat her wounds and ask her to hold me as she heals. But I can’t. I can’t. Not this time. So I say nothing. I rest my back again the door and exhale. Or try to. All that comes out is a mangled sob and I clasp a damp palm across my mouth. She calls again, softer this time, nostaliga leaking into her voice. The muscle in my palms jumps and my eyes prick, hot tears flooding my vision. I press my back against the door, needing something solid. 

I have never held out this long. Always given in at the last minute, not ready to let her go. To let her die. Last time she had stopped breathing in the car and I waited a full minute before I jerked the car to a stop on the side of the highway and resuscitated her in the back seat. Begging her to come back. That I was sorry. That I could not live without her. She woke with a gasp and the promise of forever on her lips, as she always does. She has not been the same since then. She hasn't been the same for months, but especially since then. 

A bang rattles the door frame and I bite down on the soft spot between my thumb and forefinger, my back sliding down the door frame. It's quiet now, as I sit on the floor in the entereway. I squeeze my eyes shut and let the tears come silently, cradling my heart against my chest. I hold my breathe for a moment when I think I hear something on the otherside of the door, but it is just loves wheezing breath. I begin counting the seconds between her each inhale and exhale, as they gradually grow father and father apart. My heart is warm throught the fabric of shirt and my head is heavy. Soon love’s breathing stalls and does not pick up again. 

I count to ten and grit my teeth against the urge to toss my heart aside and pry open the door and breathe life into her. To yank her jacket open and shove my longing into her wound until the bleeding stops. To press assurances into the chest over and over until the spark returns to her eyes and she tells me everything is going to be okay. I’ve counted to twenty now and my back aches from this position on the ground but I dare not move. Not shatter this already delicate moment. Then I’ve counted to thirty, then sixty, then one hundred and twenty and then I loose track of the moments as my eyelids droop and rest tugs me under. I fall into a dreamless sleep with salt stained cheeks and my heart beating steady in my hands. 

When I wake, it is dark. As I peel my eyes open I realize it is the street lights that are casting dancing patterns across the tiled floor through the blinds. The only other source of light is a glow emitting from the kitchen where I must have left the switch on. My throat is dry and my legs ache as I stretch them out. It takes a second for me to recall where I am and why. A sweet flicker of a moment before I realize the weight of my heart in my hands is like lead. But it is whole. I breathe deep, feeling the ether stretch my lungs, and let my eyes close for an instant. Atleast it is whole, I remind myself. 

I shift my shoulders and adjust my poorly positioned neck that I know will hurt for days as I stand. I set my heart down by the door and glance out the curtains hesitantly. Even in the dark I can tell no one is there and I don’t know what I expected or what I feel. Disappointment and relief, panic and guilt, thread themselves between each other in knots in my stomach. I breathe deep again, hand finding the cool doorknob, gripping this understanding of the decision I have made. 

The door creaks and the cold of the night washes over me all at once, my breath fogging in front of me. I let my gaze wander across the landscape of the lawn and small porch. There is nothing, no matter how hard I squint into the black, there is nothing. I swallow and glance down where the welcome mat lays at the foot of the front door. Something lays there and I lean down to see what it is. My fingers brush over brittle stems. The flowers are long withered, a few frosted fallen petals remain, but most must have been blow to the wind. I set the corpses of the plants back down and retreat behind the door again, the cold air still clinging to my bones. 

I click the lock shut and rest my forehead against the white entryway. Everything aches and when I swallow it hurts but somehow I feel indescribably lighter. This time the weight on my chest is dense but not unbearable. Like in the aftermath of a disaster, when you’re standing in the midst of the wreckage, everything is awful and terrifying and you might want to fall to your knees and scream but at least the ground has stopped shifting. At least you know what you’re working with. You know the damage has been done and there will be no more anguish of breaking. Just the pain that comes with healing. And of course, it will hurt, but there is promise that it will eventually hurt less. And less. And maybe one day it won’t hurt at all anymore. Maybe. 

I lift my head and turn on the lightswitch. Picking my heart up off the floor, I make my way to the bathroom, where I promise myself warmth awaits me. In the mirror I marvel at my rid rimmed eyes and chapped lips. My wild hair and bear shoulder where my shirt has slipped. I press my fingers against the glass and sigh. I swallow my heart and feel the wound settle inside me taking a moment to readjust to the weight. As I peel my clothes from body, I catch a glimpse of something move in the mirror and my heart skips a beat. But by the time my eyes focus, there is nothing there. My gaze flits around the room but there is nothing. I grip the counter and steady myself repeating this to myself. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. She is dead. There is nothing left of her. Except memory, a disloyal part of me whispers. Except ghost. Except ghost, I agree relecutently. 

I undress and avoid letting my gaze snag in the mirror again. The water is turned on and before long steam fogs the glass anyways. Under the stream the cold melts from my muscles and some stiffness surrenders to the current. Here I sit with the knowledge that she is dead. That I let her die. I may not have been the one that dealt the killing blow but I let her bleed out on my doorstep. And she is gone. She may come back to haunt me occasionally, but I trust these instances will fade eventually with her memory. By trust I mean I hope. But I can not dwell on this. Cannot let the thought of her suffocate me. She is dead and I am not. I am alive. I let her die so I could live. And I will. I will. 

- Love will haunt you long after she is dead

You have softened all my edges.

And I am afraid

That when you leave,

(As they all

Inevitably do)

I will be left

Defenseless

Against

The world.

~

I run my fingers over all the places my skin is pulled taunt.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to."

"I know."

But I want to want to.

For you.

There is not enough space

Between the lines

To hold

Everything

I failed to say.

~

I wonder often

If they will remember me

As anything other

Than what I helped them forget.

So I make promises

Knowing they will be broken,

In an attempt

To collect sins.

Hoping

In the end,

I might

Cash them in

To see you again.

~

I say

I forgive you

But you tell me

It means nothing

Because you do not

Forgive yourself.

Then what am I worth to you?

What am I worth to you?

For are you so staunch in your belief,

That you do not deserve

To be loved,

That you would shatter my heart

To prove yourself right?

~

I tell myself,

If I could not make you love me,

I will at least

Make you

Miss me.

But I do not hold it against you.

For if I left me

I would not

Long for my return

Either.

~

I title this chapter

Lessons on forgiving

Myself

When I deserve it

Least.

In it,

Sorry

Is not used

Once.

~another compilation of thoughts only beautiful out of context

Everyone says they would rather skip the small talk

Get to the deep stuff

The important things

As though the little things are not the entrance to the heart

The cracks and crevices not the softer way

To make home in ones affection

Over breaking open the ornate doors

Of their chambers

Leaving them bleeding out

So tell me

How you take your eggs

And that ponytails make your scalp itch

Tell me how long it takes you to drive to work

And where you like to sit on the train

Talk to me about weather

And about how you keep forgetting to take out the trash

So that one day when I show up with a cup of tea just the way you like it

And we talk the long path home

Just past the mural you love on 22nd street

You will know

Just how important

The little things are

To me

When they belong to you

~ i met her in September

Hurricanes blossom

All disasters were once children

For they had to grow

Learn to be

The tragedy they were destined for

And in this way can any crisis

Be averted?

For who are we to interfere

with fate?

~

My lips are bruised peaches

My melancholy a docile creature most days

I wonder if in another life I will become

A medium size star for what I have done

Or for all I have not

Ordained for the most gruesome of celestial deaths

Planetary nebula

All the violence of unbecoming

Without the supernova beauty of unravelling

~

I have never been kissed

I have never been held like

Blooming daffodils

Like the black hole before it

Becomes.

Do you think the black hole is

Deserving

Of what it takes?

Do you think it cruel?

Do you think it does not hate what it has become?

Do you not think it tries to be

Small?

To take less?

Do you think it is easy to

Devour the world

To hold the universe in the pit of yourself and still feel

Empty

To be insatiable

To repent for the hunger

Gifted to you by oblivion

~

We have only ever seen

One side of the moon

And in this way I mourn

But who could I still become

If I stopped grieving the loss

Of the woman I thought I would be

~ and even the end must first begin

hi just wanted to say im obsessed w ur enemies to lovers quote 😭 have not been able to stop thinking about it 💔💔 each time I come back to it a new line hits me straight in the chest like: “I have seen you in the light, I have known you in the dark” AAAAAHHH. just wanted to ask what post ur proudest of on ur blog / or if you have written similar things to that one to rec me? <3

I would just like to say I saw your reblog of that post and your excitement in the tags nearly brought me to tears <3 it made my day. Unfortunately, I'm mostly a poetry writer, though I dabble in prose when I come across a good prompt or when I have a story or scene that just won't leave me alone (some of the poetic writing style definitely leaks into my fiction works as you can tell haha). But there's honestly never really been much demand for my prose/ fiction so though I'm delighted you enjoyed it and I hate to disappoint you-- there's nothing much else like that on this blog at the moment. I've written a couple enemies to lovers scenes in responses to prompts. One being this enemies are soulmates scene but don't really think its the sort of thing you're looking for. Another was a princess kidnapped on the eve of her Coronation enemies to lovers thing, but realizing now I never posted it on Tumblr but did comment it on the Instagram post here.

When it comes to generally the post im proudest of on this blog...i don't know if I have one. I'm not necessarily proudest of the posts that have done the best, and my favourite pieces I've written aren't necessarily the posts I'm proudest of on my blog. I do love this Persephone meets Eve piece, mostly because im in love with the idea, not so much with the execution, and also this love language piece because it was the first piece I ever had published by an online magazine (I like the edited one in the mag better than the original I posted), but I think I'm proud of every post that's ever resonated with anyone the way the enemies to lovers quote resonated with you. Whether the post has 5 or 5,000 notes, all it takes is one comment, on reblog, one message where someone says "yes. this. these words seeped into my skin and sunk into my soul and i felt it." Whether it be because they related to it and it helped them feel or it shifted their perspective or they just found the writing heart touching-- every single post that is able to do that, even if for just one person, I am proud of.

Today I was proudest of this post because it made you feel something <3 thank you <3

https://wisp-of-thought.tumblr.com/post/652089718796959744

hello do you still have the link for the full version of this? 😭 i pressed the link in the notes but the post was unavailable 💔

Don't know why!! Sorry :( here you go!