A cheap vanilla-scented candle gifted by a lover in the distant past of some other life. The flame they lit together under ill-fated circumstance burning unchecked and without regard for consequence. Sparks flying amid stuttered steps and rushed breath in windowless rooms with lights as bright as sunbeams. Faces washed out from overexposure, yet how they hold a glow. Blood rushes and hot passion and the feeling of this is it. This is it. Oh no, this is it. We're ruining everything. Cut the lights and let things burn until the cavalry heeds orders to halt under pressure from the heartbreak of choice. The fire snuffed out prematurely and the daydream suspended indefinitely. The doomed lovers and the vanilla scented candle, no longer evoking concupiscence and mutual desire, instead overwhelming the nostrils with regret and miasmic emptiness. The lusty boy and the lovesick girl who killed his wasted time. His resistance to playing the understudy in a show he'd never be cast in. Her failed resuscitative efforts to rouse a connection that was never rooted to begin with. And now, the tiny ball of wax kept as a memento seems insignificant as it mindlessly rolls between your fingers and finally disintegrates in your palm. And you breathe through the things you lost.
A plastic stick with two pink lines shoved to the back of the nightstand, hidden among folded 'I love you' notes to good mommies who read bedtime stories about brave girls and gentle boys. Mommies who teach their sleepy children about the borrowed earth and muse esoterically about how our soul moves through life in search of the things that feel closest to home. Bold yawns give way to soft closed lids, the last thoughts of the day firmly seeded within their perspicacious minds. The good mommy with the somnolent children uncaged from convention, and the plastic stick with the positive lines reluctantly discarded along with the sinking dreams you sometimes feel you don't deserve to hold again. Let the grief wash over you and let the water carry her away. And you feel gratitude for the things you have.
The sweet release of burning it all to ashes or allowing the river to flow. Bidding farewell to that younger self you were for a brief season, and giving yourself permission to grow. To accept what is and what never will be.
And now, you no longer wonder what if. You only see what is. You find the beauty in the seconds that are slipping away between you and all that you love. You slowly and thoughtfully listen to yourself and your inner knowing. You no longer seek to change things, knowing that change comes soon enough, and often without warning. You are content with what you've been given and what you have lost.
And with a deep and reverent breath, you say something like: I'll love you forever and I release myself from expecting anything to be different.
It can't be different.
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