Exploding in a Moment
There you stand ready for the end of the world. Sometimes wishing it would just hurry the fuck up already because the pain and remorse of choices made for you, of an unforeseen rejection leaves you with an anxiety that steals your ability to breathe.
There she stands at the top of the stairs laying you to waste with her shameless kindness. “I love him.” Not even an apology to go along with it. Just nothing else. The whole thing takes five seconds? Ten? Or have you been standing here for ten years? It is hard to know in moments like these.
Your disappointment regarding your past sits squarely on the insistence of dreaming in the now. Even a disappointing past is better than the here and now. You ruminate. You meditate. In front of you the stairs and she stands at the top like Caesar giving his orders to cross the Rubicon. You know what awaits you and it is awful. But you also know you cannot defy the physical laws of space and time. Forward is the only way to go. Still, you slip into a dream.
* * * * * * * * * *
If you dream of a way back to her it will sound less like a promise to return than a desperate search forward, one filled with the subdued urgency of the hurricane’s eye. The slightest step forward and you’re in the path of 80 m.p.h. winds. And, for all your morose anxiety and disappointment, a discreet sense of defiance, protest. What is that, hope?
* * * * * * * * * *
And though you wish it were not so, it is impossible to separate the present from the past. You see it now, don’t you? The pattern. First you covet, followed by fear, and replaced with courage, and finally disappointment. Love is not meant to last. It is ancient and it is current. You grab the newel post to keep standing straight. You cannot show her now that she won. Won? Like this is a game? Damn right. You hide your reaction. Hell, even if you wanted to react, what would you even say? And it wouldn't change a thing.
* * * * * * * * * *
Time advances. The wind picks up, but that could be just a coincidence. A train whistle shrieks. Even cockroaches clatter with the sound of their post-coital romance. You’re so much older now. To be alone now is like some sort of political affiliation you never intended. You’re wearing a MAGA hat at the Democratic National Convention. It’s a nightmare. But it gets worse.
* * * * * * * * * *
Something happens, and you want so badly to believe. Then come the whispers of the folks in town — or maybe no one, really; maybe you're alone — hold your breath. Look up to the stars and you’re gone.
You’re in line waiting for your coffee. Some mutter through pursed lips. Some weep. You imagine all of it. They tilt their heads back, the skin of their necks stretching, and they crane their necks to catch a glimpse. You look, they squeeze their eyes shut. The clouds thicken into a quilt, but that could be just a coincidence. You’re next in line. Just pay and calmly exit. Fight the urge to shout, to run, to attach C-4 to front door and blow the whole place to smithereens.
And then it is passes. Outside you calm down. Don't look back.
* * * * * * * * * *
You gaze with the sadness of bewildered eyes, eyes that do not comprehend the mercilessness of murdering an innocent. It’s like watching the bludgeoning of a baby seal. But you’re not so innocent as that fuzzy little fucker, are you? Maybe you had it coming! No. No one deserves this. The questions begin sort of profoundly and devolve into blunt anger: Is that all? Don’t you want to say more? Don’t you owe me some sort of explanation? How long? Wait, repeat what you said because the volume of the blood rushing in my ears is making me deaf. Questions you never asked. Answers you’d regret to know anyway.
* * * * * * * * * *
The sky still overcast; it is just as easy to curse it. The sky. God. Her. Everyone. Some men just want to see the world burn. Now you know why.
* * * * * * * * * *
The people in the coffee shop pack up and head home. They always pack up and go home. Back into the woods, into the buildings, back to their jobs. Back to their lovely nests of two point something kids and a golden fucking doodle. Back to former lovers. Back to their unanswered questions.
Oh. Wait. An epiphany. So that’s what it is. She left you for someone she left behind. She left you because not knowing is too much. She left you because you bored her. She loves him? Is it really that simple?
You go home, too, and try to sleep. You toss and turn. What are you supposed to do now? How easily our identities become intertwined. How easily we are tamed. How difficult to see oneself free of intimate associations. Fuck. You should've been a Buddhist. Wish her well. Send her on her way with your blessing.
* * * * * * * * * *
But you're not a Buddhist. You are Rocky Raccoon. You're the Red-Headed Stranger. Maybe if you loaded the old Winchester and found them in their favorite out-of-town bar, in some dark corner and waited until they were smiling into each other’s eyes and…so you want to live the life of an outlaw? Yes. Well, no. But damn, you could picture it so easily. Just a slight jerk of the old index finger. A permanent physiological modification. Who could really fault you? At least they’d die happy. You’d be doing them a favor, really. You could save them from ever having this moment. Maybe the Gideons could help.
* * * * * * * * * *
Time truly is a revelator. But it is not the will of God that is revealed. It is a misstep. A faulty assumption. You assumed safety while she had a wandering eye. You could force her to stay. Punish her even. Remember that movie, Boxing Helena? Yikes. Still, the thought lingers longer than it should.
Your love is your favorite wool work shirt that you want to fit but no matter how you try to puff out your chest it is just too big. You’ve gotten smaller somehow. Maybe it really is better off in someone else’s closet. In his closet. You can wear it around the house, but it will never fit you again. Fine, you want to keep it? Go ahead. Wear it in the privacy of home but not around town, not for the public to see. You’d look pitiful. Out of place. Aberrant. Rejected people deserve handicap spaces. Steps are too heavy to walk very far.
There is an accumulation that occurs in the quietude of being rejected. The accumulation of all the choices and missteps and miscalculations and misread signals. Patterns emerge. A weight now to be carried. It would just be so easy to close the curtains and binge watch Netflix and eat a half gallon of chocolate ice cream. For two weeks. For a month? Easy? Right. Sure, it’s easy. But if it were that easy then there would be no poems or sonnets or plays or short stories or novels about what comes next.
* * * * * * * * * *
You can get past the pain of losing. You can get past the shock of not being cool enough. You can even get past the dreams you had of a future. What you cannot seem to get past is the unrelenting desire to walk backwards, to look over your own shoulder. The paranoid feeling that somebody is scheming to cheat you out of something. No one is safe. Trust no one. Not even yourself.
That’s it. There’s the real rub. You don’t trust yourself now. You thought you knew something and rested peaceful in that certainty. Night after night. Year after year.
You thought she was going to ask you if you wanted to go out to eat or stay in? You thought she was going to ask you to help her make the bed. You thought a thousand things, which all seemed plausible, which would have been plausible just 24 hours before. Look how wrong you can be. You did not anticipate the three words that stopped the planet from rotating.
* * * * * * * * * *
Your doctor will prescribe Lorazepam and ask, “Couldn’t you have seen it coming?” You will resist the urge to locate his jugular and squeeze until his eyes bleed. “No” is all you’ll reply.