The Only Thing (shortish prose)

To begin where it begins: days crawling like molasses, life just a barely noticeable, throbbing phantom pain. It is summer, or spring. Maybe it is May. It is the past, but it is a past demanding for the present. Full blown, recent attention. Walking on the grave just recently shovelled, the dirt still wet and weighing heavily on the wounded soul.

Yet, to begin where it begins: the moment when bleeding words on paper became as inevitable as the end. When they connect, the molasses is suddenly liquefied and time becomes a merciless current carrying them through the moments, the minutes, the hours. To be immersed in this stream, unwanted and unrecognisable emotion pulsing in veins before utterly clotted and entangled. For days, she has the words on her tongue, pressed against her teeth. Sometimes, her fingertips type them out without her knowledge, but she notices and corrects them. I feel so connected with you. I am so attracted to you. I…don’t know what it is about you. Coward’s ways out for a truth that is as essential as breathing.

At last it is him who speaks first. The holy trinity of words, spoken almost casually. Not saying it is keeping something that belongs to somebody else. In his uncompromising world it is a lie, unjustifiable theft. He says much more than that, and when he stops to take a breath it is easy to say it. And then, because it feels so good, to say it again and again and again. I love you. I love you. I love you so much. I love you. I really do.

To rejoice in it. I love you. It makes the day seem brighter. There is a smile, inerasable, settled on her face. To love and to be loved. To be torn away from the shores of sanity by those three little words. I love you and nothing else matters. We love each other, and that’s that. It is endlessly right. It makes life bearable, and the rainbows tangibly vivid. For a moment there is light in the dark weave of the universe, there is life, there is love. For a while, this is enough.

To end where it ends? It is love. It is eternal. It is salvation. It is a thing to hold on to. It is the only thing.