I pour my heart out to you

I show you every intricate detail of my feelings.

I spare not a single experience.

You see me with a tear in my eye, and you ask me

 

Why does she get to you so bad?

 

See, she was different.

She wasn’t like any other.

She had a thing about her that demanded attention.

And I enjoyed that.

It was mid-April in the year of 2012 when we committed a crime

It wasn’t a crime against the laws of this nation

To the laws of nature

Or to the laws of our religious views

Wholly, it was a crime against our selves

We were like glow sticks

Breaking a glow stick is a one-way trip

After you mix a solution within the encased plastic

You can’t take it back

You can’t repair it.

Once you break a glow stick, it begins to enlighten a room.

Likewise, our love grew with the commitment we’d created.

The glow stick became so bright that it could illuminate a room at mid-day with the lights on.

But as all glow sticks, it began to lose strength.

It began to fade.

As it did, we fooled ourselves by darkening the room around us.

We lived in a lie that everything was still together, and our love was the same as before.

But that wasn’t the case.

 

It wasn’t until December of 2013 when I found out

It had been nearly a month separated

She walked up to me,

A grin on her face

And told me we needed to talk

She stood for a minute

For what seemed like a lifetime

She remained quiet

Finally I asked her what was wrong

I could see it even before the false twinkle in her eye was removed

I could feel it even before she allowed the faux smile to vanish

Hesitantly she told me that she couldn’t do it,

She couldn’t tell me.

I begged her to let it out.

She gave me the news,

She had lost something that someone should never have to lose

A part of her just left.

With tears in her eyes, she told me that she had lost a child

My child

All I could do was stand there

Speechless

After a brief moment

I lifted my hand gently to her neck

Caressing the back of it

Trying to comfort her

Tears in my eyes

All I could say was Sorry

Over and over and over and over

Again

I said sorry

I led her to another room

A place where we could have more privacy.

I poured my feelings out in that room

I felt what it was like to be alone.

In that room with her.

She went through it alone

That’s all I could think

She went through that alone because of me.

So much stress because of me.

I couldn’t help but to blame myself

Bawling, in her arms.

She told me his name and I felt it.

The feeling of an overwhelming joy and depression lingered above me.

And then you ask me

 

Why does she get to me so bad?
 

And I reply

Every time I see her

Every time I brush against her shoulder in a crowd of people we won’t recognize in 10 years

Every time I glace about the room and my eyes fall upon the reflection of hers

I see him.

I see him.

I see him.

And then you ask me

 

Why does she get to you so bad?

 

Every time I see myself

Every time I catch my reflection in a steam covered mirror

Every time I find a picture of myself

I see him

I see him.

I see Eli.

 

He is a package addressed to her and me

And after opening it you find a mirror

He is us.

He is the solution created just 10 months before by the breaking of a glow stick

He is the factor of a naïve love culminated between two.

And even though he isn’t a reality in a sense

He is alive

He is in here.

He is in there.

He wasn’t a mistake

He wasn’t an accident

He is a gift.

A reminder that we both still have so much in common.

And then you ask me

 

Why does she get to you so bad?