I scream, grab your arms and shake them, get right in your face, my eyes pleading with you to look at me…hear me…love me. I rage at you, calling you awful names, grabbing your chin in my hand to make you look in my eyes…but you’re somewhere else. You’re looking right through me into an abyss that makes a wormhole look full of light. Your memories and your terrors have convinced you that you still live with them. I slap your face, trying to get a reaction out of you and drag you back from yourself but you don’t even notice. Tears streaming down my face, I back away from you, shaking my head at my disbelief, my loss, and the knowledge that I can’t save you. I turn away from you and you still stare straight ahead, your moss colored eyes hazy with the pain of past wrongs and tragedies, a life that was filled with sorrow too soon, and death too often.
All this…happens in my head. In the real world, as your eternity eyes look at the night, I say quietly to you, “hey, come back to me”. I reach towards your arm, but you are uncomfortable with touch so I pull my hand back, never feeling the warmth of your skin…
You smile, and make a smartass comment…but I know that you’re still there…the abyss won’t let you get too far away….and I’m not enough anchor to hold you…and life slips you by…as you fight the demons that have long since gone….
And I fight the demons that still surround me…knowing that you’ll never love me…and that you will never see me for who I am. I made an oath though, a promise to stay by your side and not abandon you as so many others have. We sit and watch the moon bless us with the pale light of summer, and never dig deeper than calling a spade a spade. I may be the one to keep my oath but I may also breathe my last by it. A tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, the loving of someone who will never love you back.
the fighter still remains 