One Beats Two

Two would be nice, going for awhile – two would be a welcome break from one.

Two we have already been, do you not remember? I was so sure of you, that you were the one.

I hardly recollect the time that we were two, and me not just one, wishing to be yours.

Well, it would have been nice if you’d stood then the way you are now, way which you forecast in your dreams, but we were already two, and shan’t be again.

If there was some way to salvage, a way to undo the hurt, to rewind, not come undone.

Yes, it would be nice, but we cannot go back, and we shall not be two. The problem is not with us not being two, though you not being one.

I cannot be one. When I see your face in the haunted, pallid margins of mind, it is with grim remembrance of what I may never attain.

See, that we could never be two. Not here. Nary again.

But what if I want it more than anything?

What you want is a way forward. To move on from the past. But you cannot walk a path that begins elsewise from where the one that you move has carried you.

Static, linear reality bleeds as I attempt stretching it, pushing so hard, bleeding out the lines of consciousness that bend yet do not break.

Is that what happens, why you cannot move on, and your head feels like a cowbell, and lies pile up, lies which you only tell yourself, that form a phalanx around you in defensive posture, and why you walk and feel so alone, so frightened of the shadows and noises and life all around?

Truth is, much hath happened since your flower wilted. For me things did not get better; the nightmare continued, my soul cried out for you, that I did not heed it, but faced abjection alone, and in the dim night there is nothing so empty, functionless as is the vessel which I’m borne.

I came to you by light of day many years hence the pain of which you speak, that haunts me as well. I tried to see you, to mend; you turned away from the call. When I needed you, fled away.

I did not know yet that I needed you, nor understand loving you was my purpose here.

But, see, that I did not need to know this to come to your aid, to try and help you heal.

Yes, I see that now.

Good. How is the silence – that cold, marginalized emptiness which encapsulates you?

…

Why didn’t you answer?

Because that’s how it is. It’s nothing. Everything is nothing. Except nothing. That’s it.

I’m sorry.

Are you?

Yes.

You were always better than me.

No. Your problem is in believing you are lesser.

My problem was watching what they took from you. My problem was not being able to stand and be a man. My problem is unrequited love.

No. Those were problems and the last is a choice to dwell upon. See that I have learned to live, and even well, at that; there is joy, ease, peace.

How could you stand it?

How could you?

It destroyed me.

No. Everything destroyed you. A continuation of all things. Your collision course with destiny began before we ever met.

I hate that they took our love away from us.

Yes, I suppose that they did.

I hate that they hurt you.

They hurt you, too.

I hate that I never got to love you.

But you do, even now, I know.

I sense you all the time.

I feel you, too.

Could we ever be two?

No.

Why?

Because you’ll never be one.

There is a chance.

One may one, but never two.