Crown of Love

Friday is D Day.

As in Divorce Day. As in finito. As in forever. As in no-more. So it means that I am taking things back. Things like my name. The promise of "til death do us part".

Nothing's changing. Nothing will be different. But the floors are caving in. And it feels like being punched in the stomach over and over with something like a hot iron or the lead pipe in Clue.

And Saturday won't be any different than last Tuesday.

But today, tomorrow. I am watching the city pulse and time is standing still.

And yesterday there was nothing I wanted more than to run-a-way. Anything to make-it-go-away. Fingers felt like claws and I couldn't breath in that box you put me in. And I didn't believe in one thing that one person had ever said to me. And I cursed that day in the ICU when I promised to keep on with the breathing. And I cursed the things that were inside me. And I searched and I prayed and I paced for a place to go. Something to erase me. And he was there and he didn't let me run too far. And I couldn't think of one place to go.

So I laid in his arms.

So I took a day.

We drove to the Cape. We ate pizza and sat at the beach and we talked things through. Things that Josh and I could never do. I saw his childhood room and tried to find myself in the Weezer posters and the Bruins faces, in the spider webs and the childhood pictures of a boy I never knew.

I took the long way home. Listened to a Valentine's CD I made years ago. I drove by the church, the house Josh and I rented with our friends, his parents house. And I never have to take it or keep my chin up or bite my tongue when I don't want to again. I never have to be there again. MyGod. The weight. The sadness. The freedom of driving down that familiar road and knowing I am leaving the things I need to leave but I am not running away. I know how to get home. I know now what that means. How that feels. Where he lies.

I got to Arlington late. The house felt empty. His luggage and clothes strewn around the spare room. And I went to sleep. Moonlight and a cup of tea.