Caveat: Expressions Ardently Unfettered

It’s depressing, but I think I finally understand why people are so nice and so congratulatory when you get married. It means you have found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. And that really is something to celebrate. Not that I didn’t possess this knowledge before, but when that foundation is so violently broken, you come to better understand what love is really about. If anybody’s reading, I’m sorry for all the depressing posts. My foundation has been shattered, and I just can’t seem to piece it together again, no matter how hard I try. How do you love someone forever and never see them again? How does the rest of your life just walk out the door, without so much as “goodbye”?

I’m beginning to see that, when you start a new life, and that new life is broken prematurely, that you can’t simply pick up where you left off in the old life. Nothing works anymore. Suddenly everything that was so recently familiar is awkward and strange and almost unnatural. Eating alone, sleeping alone, waking up alone—it’s all so foreign—and so utterly depressing. I keep telling myself that it must get better, it’s going to get better, it has to get better, because it can’t possibly get worse. And then I think about how small my paycheck is, how large my bills are, and I remember then that it can, and probably will get worse. After all, I can’t abandon a newly-made home, with so many fresh memories, memories that I can’t bear to let go of. Because I won’t be making any more of that kind again.

There’s an empty place in my heart,

That no one can fill

But you.

There’s an empty spot in our bed

That lies cold now

Abandoned

Awaiting your return.

There are empty shoes on the floor

Abondoned

That once belonged to you.

There are empty clothes in our closet

That once

You wore.

The wine bottles are not empty, though

Because you are not here to empty them.

The milk will soon go sour,

Waiting to be drunk by you.

Your bread has long since molded,

Your coffee and tea and your cookies

All gone stale.

Your evidence has been erased from the bathroom

No more toothbrush

No more shaving cream

No more razor

No more cologne

No more you.

But worst of all of these empty places

Is the bedroom.

The bed is forever cold

Even under the covers

And the light in there doesn’t look the same anymore,

It seems somehow dimmer, weakened

Like me.

When I enter our home

And I see everything

Just as you left it

When you went away,

How can I touch it?

How can I move the last thing you touched?

How can I erase your mark?

How can I make any move to ease the aching of my heart

Without breaking it further?

There is an empty place in my heart.

So cavernous it seems

That nothing may fill it up again.

Though this may be late in the coming, for those of you paying attention (you being singular, in this case), the short story previously posted, entitled “The Funeral Parlor” has won 2nd place in Purdue Calumet’s Stark-Tinkham Writing Contest. Not that this is a prestigious sort of award, but my own personal first bit of recognition. Perhaps there will be more to follow. On that note, “The Funeral Parlor” is by far one of my least favorite things I have written, but I suppose when you have an idea for whom you’re writing, you have an idea of what sort of material will receive the most acceptance and praise. If anyone is reading or has read it, comments are always appreciated. It can be found, unsurprisingly, under the Short Stories link.