Suicide Bomber

He thought that he was a time bomb. At any moment he would say the wrong thing, let one thing go and-

Boom.

The whole relationship gone. And anything he cared about in himself with it.

Suicide.

He was always afraid of hurting me. But in truth I was the suicide bomber. I was the one with a timer inside. A trigger that no one knew about that could be pulled at any second. A ticking, flashing that anything might activate and then-

Run.

Cause there’s no telling how far the blast will go and if you’ll be able to survive.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Get out of here. Before you kill him. Before you kill yourself. Get out of here. Before it’s all too late.

He tried so many times to tell me to go. Tell me he’d break me. Tell me he’d kill me. But I waited. I stayed.

Run.

Get this timer out of me.

Because killing you will be the death of me.

 

 

 

“Just because I check my gun at the door doesn’t mean my brain will change from a hand grenade.”

Walls

There were a thousand walls between us because there were none. I could slip past his defenses, so he threw them all up. I could see right through him, so he’d lie. Say I was wrong. Pass off. Condescend. Belittle.

And even I would fall for his facades. Like Middle Eastern warfare tactics. Illusion, evasion. Maybe they learned it from mirage.

The truth was, I needed to let it go. If he put up defenses so desperately, then there really must be something to protect. No matter how much I might think I was helping, I wasn’t.

If you love me, let me go.

Barrier

“She spoke and dreamt in love, and he dreamt in death and loss.” 

There was nothing in the world that could break the barrier between them. No words, crass or eloquent, no actions, bold or refined.

No word or touch of love.

Could anything find him in the wasteland? Or would he only hate himself more, knowing she endured it to find him.

No, her word or touch of love only jarred him. With the idea something could be outside of this. That idle hope, that pipe dream that he could escape this. No, no. Any love for him would drag her into this. Any love would bring her down.

And he knew, too, that she had a wasteland of her own. A place he had no strength to enter. And he would never ask her to find him in his when he could not endure hers.

“And if we survive this desolation, perhaps our journeys will bring us along the same path.” She said in a whisper.

“When I am no longer chaos and your love no longer poison to my heart.” He pulled her close for a moment and closed his eyes before both of them let go.