Suspended by hope

In the shower mirror the half moons under my eyes are the color of dark plums, overripe and begging to become windfall.

So many nights I left you sleeping, dressed in the dark, started to run away. I don’t remember what stopped me, but I should have kept on.

So many other nights I burned myself in effigy or silently sobbed myself to sleep next to you. You never noticed.

So many days I begged you to look deeper, but you would only say that you didn't want to fight, that the project that was us was too hard.

But we were not a faucet to replace or a room to paint. We were a pair of lives forged together by acts and words, interdependent but requiring the same maintenance as any tangible thing.

Our bond began to crumble and I clung so hard to those falling shards as they fell. Hand over hand, I tried to put them back, believed that working alone, it was enough.

I bargained and pled, letting pieces of myself go instead of pieces of us. I was but a pair of forearms and hands left suspended by hope.