Eulogy to the Damned

18.08.24

Baby, I'm a firefighter Trapped in a burning house In a silent picture And there is no way out Except to watch the love between us die

When you leave, do you check if you left the stove on? Do you make sure I wont burn down in the silence of your absence, leaving but a shadow cast against the light of the fire, until you come back, throw away what is burnt, wipe away the charcoal, and me, and continue churning against the other gears that make the machine of your life.

What do you do when the person you think of as home, stops wanting to be your home? What remains of the fire of your passion lives in a candle that is occasionally burnt when you are on video call. What remains of your cerebral coexistence together are occasional evenings of movies forcefully watched together because you don't know how else to engage them in a way they wont slip further away from you, so you just burn time, with them at least around for a while. You don't have that on most days. What remains of your shared intimacy is an afterthought, a maybe-on-another-day. What remains of your companionship is calls missed, messages left seen, conversations avoided, or feared, just remnants of moments that weren't, because they have companionship elsewhere. Your home is reduced down to its skeletal foundation and slats; roof, walls and furniture gone, lost to a storm you were too blind to see coming.

You only feel it when it's lost Gettin' through still has its cost Quietly, it slips through your fingers, love Fallin' from you, drop by drop.

My dilemma is one of finding the clasping cracked corroding hands of loneliness in a world where I am told that I have someone to count on. Hi. What are you doing here? I didn't expect you. Not now. Not like this. My shame is thinking you wouldn't be back, or that you weren't lurking around the corner waiting to make your monthly visit. Or fortnightly. Why do you come around so often? My defeat is thinking it would be different this time if I was less of an asshole. The skeleton that remains of our bond makes me question what went wrong. The bones of us would shine in the moonlight, scars of what we used to be gleaming calcified against the smooth but brittle surroundings. We brought the our best to the table, didn't we? Yet, what remains is a skeleton, the flesh lost in the depths of longing that took a backseat as the fire died, and the muscles lost to a heart that grew cold, or boredom that seeped in. How do you stay strong when you realise that the person you want does not want you the same way? What am I supposed to do with this love I have if you don't want it? I cannot have it because it's not mine to keep, and I don't want to give it to anyone else. It's so fucking heavy it's weighing us down, and I don't know where to put it. Why do you not want it anymore? Which home are you supposed to wait for, if when she returns, she only brought the part of her that chooses to come home. What were we hoping to save? We died but were simply left unburied, our souls left to helplessly haunt evanescing happiness into each other that has faded when the sun comes out.

You win, Circumstance. You have slain hope. You have felled the abhorring beast that was my redemption. How dare I, right? At least you did it after giving me a taste of what being wanted felt like. However momentary it may have been. Love only came my way because you did not have anything else to do, and now you do. Thank you for letting me shine on you, even though shade is all you seek now. I wish it was enough.