Sing Into My Mouth

"I get tired of waiting too, but unlike you, I’m not tempted.”

Dev held my stare for so long I was terrified I’d have to repeat myself, something I didn’t know if I could do with a steady voice again. He somehow always did the last thing I expected. This time his stare turned inward, his eyes swam with tears, and his shoulders deflated. I knew what was coming, I could feel it. He was not okay anymore, whatever we were, was pulverizing him. His olive skin had dulled, his hair seemed greasy, his voice was raspier than normal. His internal turmoil was leaving its mark on him.

“I don’t know what to do,” his voice was desperate, hollow.

I didn’t speak, he had to get there, and I needed to stretch this meeting out because it was about to be our last.

“Its not that I’m tempted by them or what they do, it’s because it’s easier. It’s not as hard on me. Not seeing you, not being able to spend all my time with you, kills me. Like I feel this ache in my chest that knocks me over sometimes because I miss you so much I feel like I can’t breathe… I can’t even explain to people what’s happening because I know they won’t understand. I just can’t not be with you anymore and there’s something that always gets in the way, always keeps us apart.”

Now I didn’t know what to do. I knew that for his sake, we needed to go our separate ways for good. I also knew that he was wrong. That Dev didn’t want to do the work anymore, because it was too hard. He was giving up, not because I wasn’t enough, but because his soul couldn’t take it. Or worse, he didn’t believe he could handle it. Knowing that hurt me more. It didn’t matter what I needed, because he was in too much pain to enjoy himself. I also understood his pain because I felt the same exact way.

“I feel so good around you it’s fucking criminal. I need you to know that, that it's all backwards.” He took a step towards me, his boot crushing the hay “You are who I want but…”

I felt like the hay that evening. Flimsy and stomped on.

“Please say something,” Dev begged.

My throat hurt, because his did. I felt myself staring inwardly, how cruel it was, that even now, I understood what he needed. He needed to be away from me. How much courage would walking out of this rotting barn take? I crossed my arms over my stomach, craned my neck towards the caved in roof and wished it’d fall on us, so we could move on together.

I never want to be away from you. I swallowed that feeling, it offered me nothing now.

“Mae, please say something.”

“It is all backwards,” I was proud I could muster that.

Hearing my voice gave him chills, it always did that, I could see them erupt on his strong arms in the dying light. It was unfair to be this connected to someone and have to go. I sat on a hay bale because my knee’s knew what I was about to do, he stayed leaning against a splintering beam. I ignored the fact that we normally were attached at hip when we saw each other. The hay stabbed my bare legs, grounding me.

“When we met, it felt like…my heart mended itself. Almost like it was broken and I didn’t know it, until I was around you. Once I knew you existed, I wasn’t mourning anymore, I was only longing to be with you again and again." I swallowed, " I’ve thought about that a lot, how from the start it was different. I get that ache too, where it feels like there’s a tear in my heart. Before I knew you, I was always elsewhere. My thoughts, my feelings, my heart was with me half the time and somewhere else the rest-”

“They were with me,” he said it before I could.

Why are you making me do this?

“Yeah,” my throat was growing thick with reality “I still remember that day we spent in the field so vividly… My cheek against your back as you gave me a piggy back ride. Feeling your heartbeat, listening to us breathe in unison, we were so in sync and at ease at the same time…All of what we feel isn’t supposed to happen in real life, but it has for us.”

Dev shook the smile from his face, shoved his hands in the back pocket of his Wranglers.

“What?” I asked, searching for his brown eyes.

“I don’t get how you can be so strong,” His voice was warm again.

I huffed and chuckled.

“What?”

I shook my head.

“C’mon, tell me,” I was obsessed with everything about him.

I found his eyes, big and heartbroken, “Cause any time spent with you makes up for all the time I spend longing for you and missing you. It’s always worth the separation.”

He crossed his arms and let his hair obscure his face.

He never looked at me again.

I had always understood something about our connection that Dev didn’t. That all the events, people, and jobs that kept us apart were purposeful. We were so linked, so in tune, at all times. To be that aware of someone else was intense, electric, and exhausting. We were always good with each other, I always knew what he was feeling, he always knew what I was thinking. It was unspoken that we were each other’s. Anyone around us could tell that we had something that no one else could come close to. Sometimes when he touched me, I thought that every cell in my body was going to multiply until I exploded. It was hard to maintain that energy for long periods of time and something always made sure we didn’t.

The same thing would always happen when one of us had to go, Dev would get really agitated. He’d resist the separation, he’d beg me to stay, or he’d try to find a way out of his obligations. He would say something strange, “It’s not fair, I don’t understand why we did this. We should never be apart.”

I felt the same, but I knew on a deeper level that it was how it was supposed to be. Something good always came out of us spending time together. We grounded each other, we alleviated worries, we grew together. In our time apart we would become stronger in ourselves, making each reunion more delicious than the last. But I had been watching it eat Dev alive for the last year.

There’s nothing you can do, when someone has made up their mind. I hated knowing what we needed. Seeing clearly that there was no other option. I think I knew last month when we decided to meet up, no, maybe the night before last… Maybe when he walked up in his usual bow legged gait, that’s when I knew. It felt like someone punched me in the stomach whenever I saw him, but this time, it burned.

It still burned, maybe that’s what gave it away.

The same thing happened when we first saw each other, which I think he had hoped wouldn’t, we made love. We couldn’t not, it was more than instinct, more than lust, it was about closeness. Knowing each other as deeply and intimately as possible and the tough thing was it was always better than the last time. It always felt like something bigger than us was happening, like we were Celestial beings handing each other the moon, feeding each other the sun.

He was pacing now. I thought about begging him to give it another shot, but I knew better.

“This has to be it,” He was crying “I don’t know why, but it has to be.”

My heart tore open or maybe it was my soul. Something behind my heart had ripped in half. I was transported back to when this barn had been functional. I had laid here with the horses as a girl, talking to a feeling that would overcome me when I tried to sleep. An awareness of someone else would overwhelm me and I would feel like I wasn’t alone on Earth but I also wasn’t where I was supposed to be. A rage with rip through me and something in me would cry out “Where are you! You said you’d be here!”

It had left me when I met Dev at my cousins wedding.

I felt that way again, like my heart was breaking for no reason. And this time, the barn smelled of rotten wood, there was a hole from where the ceiling caved in that sucked out any warmth. Now something in me was screaming “Why are you giving up? You said you never would!”

I wonder if Dev knows that he’s still going to think about me everyday.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to leave,” He moved away from the beam, it had started to rain on him. I stared at the hay covered floor, I never knew I could feel this bad. This wrong. I glanced at my knuckles, they had turned white from gripping the bale so I didn’t get up and try to hold him.

“You don’t have to,” my voice sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else.

I didn’t dare walk near him. It was hard enough to move at all, my body wanted to be wrapped up in him. The rain was deafened by the hay on the ground, but it crunched loudly, and I thought again about the state of my heart. It was being marred in real time and for some reason this was what I needed to do and I felt it. But I was willingly choosing to hold my breath for the rest of my life. Every part of him that was connected to me, was dying. Shriveling up, rotting like the barn that had held so many memories of me…of us. I thought of all the things that barn had witnessed, the conversations the wood had heard. How much I hated that that would be my last memory there. I felt like frozen ground, except my spring sun was never going to thaw me again.

The tears came the minute I shut my truck door. I was on the other side of the pain, it was gestating on its own now. There was wisdom all around me, clinging to me like a new skin. It takes courage to know. To see people for who they are, to remain in tune with the bigger picture. As much as Dev thought he was going to walk away, I knew he wouldn’t unless I did. I loved him so much, I would rather take myself out of his life than cause him more pain, even if it cost me half of my heart, of my whole soul. All paths had led to that broken down place. I related to the barn, its bones were showing like its flesh had been picked clean by buzzards. I always thought there was beauty and truth in run down places, now looking at it grow smaller in my rearview mirror I only had one thought.

The inside always gets out.