From the day we met, I put your promises in their own special jars and tucked them away. Every single one you have ever told. Under beds. In cabinets. On shelves. But that one. I put it high on a shelf where it would be safe. In a place I could always keep my eye on it. And it was good, we were good. Until we weren’t.
You shook the whole house and told me it wasn’t your fault that it broke. Our walls echo with your anger, your desperation as try to make the air twist with your lies. I only focus on the broken promise. My palms press into the shattered glass, and I welcome the pain. It doesn’t compete with seeing the mess on the floor. That feeling. I wish it was just a ripping of flesh. Something that could be stitched up. Something that could be bandaged. A warning in scar tissue would be the only thing left behind. But that broken promise on the floor is so much worse. It is damaged organ and severed limb. My heart carved out with a spoon. It is loss without the numbing. You try to grab my attention. I can’t hear anything above my soul screaming. It’s shouting, “Oh, how we were wrong!”
You fall to your knees and the land in the glass. It crunches with your weight. You grab my face and force the apologies from your throat. I see the tears trembling with excitement at the edge of your eyes, ready for their grand performance. I just want to search the house for more broken jars. I look for them in your eyes. I don’t know what they say anymore. I pick the glass from my palm. You pepper my face with empty kisses. We just lost something important, yet you don’t seem angry enough for me. You don’t even care that it’s gone. I smear my hand across your face. I want you to see red, too.
I never thought I’d find it was a house of lies all along. We built this place together. A place meant to be a shelter from the outside world. A refuge. Together we laid a foundation. We built a home brick by brick. Somewhere along the way, something went wrong. What did I ignore? Allow to slip through the cracks? Which one of your smiles replaced a valuable emotion? What conversation was left undiscussed? What was our house trying to tell us as it groaned and creaked into the night?
Through the house, you follow me as I search in every nook. Now you reach for me without making contact. As if you were afraid to be burned. As if I could hurt you. But I’m not the one who made our house a mausoleum to what we were. Each room a tomb of memories. And each room full of broken glass. I go back to the kitchen and find a seat on the floor. Glass tinted with our blood that is soaking into the tile. You follow me like a shadow that knows the night is coming. That soon there won’t be a difference between it and the darkness that comes.
I pray for the house to cave in on us, our shaky walls give up and encapsulate us in a sarcophagus of your making. Let it hide this indiscretion from the world. But there is no such mercy. We occupy our own spaces on the kitchen floor. There are no words from me and you stop asking. There is only a fresh ache in my heart begging to grieve. There’s not much difference in an honest house and one built of lies. Still had a roof and plenty of secret corners to hide. It kept me warm and it kept me dry. No, there isn’t a real difference at all. I guess that’s the sad part.
Photo by Ethan Sykes on Unsplash
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