Truth Seeker

Rage is like coal. It burns dirty. The particulate matter enters my lungs and leaves me gasping for breath. I saw you today. You looked completely different, but I’d recognize you anywhere, instantly, which is why I felt the gut punch before I even understood the reason. And there’s the rage again, because I can’t let this go, I can’t let this die. There’s more shrapnel in my chest for every lie I find out you’re telling about me. 

When I saw you, my body reacted before my brain did. I froze, flyers in hand, then bolted. I don’t like how out of control I felt. For all the lovers that betrayed me, there were none that physically propelled me out of a room. I don’t know if you saw me; I turned and ran too fast. 

But what if I’d stayed? Waited until you noticed me? What would have been in your eyes, eyes that once looked at me with such reverence? Would it have been anger? Hatred? Sadness? Would you have been sorry? You should be sorry. Your vitriolic acid has burned into my skin, leaving me disfigured. Your careless words have sliced across my face and left me pouring blood. 

It was the first time I’d seen you since three weeks before it ended. A part of me wanted to keep it that way, to never see you again. That way the last time we breathed the same air would be back when we were still in love, and I would never have to face the person you’ve changed into. 

I want to cry, but I can’t, so the weight stays with me. That shell-shock nausea that leaves me on an island that’s sinking, sinking into the ocean, and though I can swim there’s nowhere to swim to. So I let the water lap at my feet until it swallows me whole. 

We danced among the constellations. We were like a riot. And when you told me you would take a bullet for me, I believed you. You said you wanted to spend your life on someone who would do something good, and you trusted me to make that happen. Would you still trust me? Did you ever fathom that it might be your gun that sounded, your bullet lodged in my ribcage? What would the you and me we were then say if they saw us now? Would they try to stop it? Would they succeed? Or was this inevitable? At the end of the day you can make your promises and tell me your beliefs, but in the end, O atheist, O truth-seeker, what do you stand for? Because in the end, it wasn’t me.