You're gone a month after we make love that first time. Like my presence and hot hot bod are only enough to keep the storms away for so long. I knew it was coming. You knew it was coming, but you kept looking at me like you wanted me to say something. Like you wanted me to make you stay.
But that wouldn't be fair to you, and I'm not ready to come with you yet. I have things to do. Excuse after excuse and reason after reason that I should stay while you go because I'm so scared of the idea. You let me push you out the door, and when it closes I'm alone, and I don't know if I'll ever see you alive again. But you're where you belong. Creeping amongst ruins, sketching ancient languages, sending me back a thousand pictures to try to make sense of and turn into something for the masses to understand. You know I need to help, you know that my voice in your ear keeps you connected to the world.
Then the pictures stop and the weekly calls go silent. I think maybe that you're dead, laying shattered at the bottom of an endless chasm, your eyes staring into nothingness. You invade my dreams in an endless series of gruesome deaths as my imagination runs wild. I slam red bull like it's water, just so I don't have to see you die again.
A thunderstorm batters London the day you return. There's a flash of lightning, and you're standing in the hallway. The hardness in your eyes begins to crumble when you lay eyes on me. There's a new scar on your forehead and you move with a tiger's grace, sweeping me into your arms. I melt into your lips. The thunder rumbles overhead, but the storm is so far away now.
We lay in my bed (not yours, never yours), your fingers playing with strands of my hair, looping them and twirling locks around. The rain patters at the window, but it's light now, and the air smells so fresh and new.
It's the calm between the storms. While you were away, the storms raged inside my head, as I know they raged inside yours. But now that you're here, the sun shines through, the weariness lifting off of your shoulders. You've learned to laugh again and the light in your eyes is stronger than ever.
It doesn't last. You can't hold your hands still. Your knee starts to bounce while we eat dinner and you keep looking outside, but you're not looking at anything that I can see. Your eyes are gazing into a place long ago and far away. You lose yourself in books and maps and old scrolls. You can't escape the demons haunting your soul any more.
And then you're gone, and the storms start up again, crashing around in my head and crushing my heart. This happens again, and again. You're here and then you're gone. You're a ship and I'm your harbor, your shelter from the squall but you never stay. You always look at me and look through me, and I know by the hardness in your eyes when you're going to go. It's a fight I'll never win, so I don't even try.
It's breaking me inside. You can't keep doing this to us. Something has to give, and it's not going to be you.