writing_shadows

[I am a little out of practice, but this was a pivotal moment for Darcy so I decided to have a ramble about it.]

It’s a beautiful night, but I don’t really see it. It’s wasted on me.

I’m staring into the middle distance, trying to avoid your gaze in case you see in my eyes the thing I try so hard to hide as words spill out of your mouth, meaningless, verbose; words to deflect and subvert and distract and fill space – none of the words that you meant and none of the words that I craved. Words to clutter the void that has grown between us. As you move about me my gaze moves too, away from you: expressionless, hard. Afraid that you’ll see. More afraid that you’ll comprehend.

You say everything and nothing. Everything but that. I used to want it - need it - so desperately, but as you prowl about me, dulcet tones filling space with empty words I realise that it doesn’t matter. Intent that mattered less than vindication, then, is plenty now. I know. I’ve grown enough to need it less. I know…

I thought that when this moment came, that warmth would flood back to me both sharp and blunt like a kick to the throat. I thought I’d cry. I thought I’d feel whole somehow.

I look away because I’m afraid to let you look too close; to see what I am feeling: you, who learned to read my eyes when all else was shut down, closed off behind an armour of pride; to see what this means to me after all this time and find your fond thoughts betrayed.

Relief.

A book I can finally close tight and put away. A chapter that need no longer occupy my mind unfinished, released from the weight of holding on too tight. A love not lost but withered. Paled. Fire that had burned so bright reduced to dull embers from neglect. Glad to finally put the pain to bed, to have reached an end at long last.

I hide my eyes because I am afraid to hurt you as you hurt me.

And afraid, perhaps, that I might like it.