The Inescapable Truths

The Inescapable Truths.

We can't live together.

We try- because we think: how can we feel so much and yet not be able to have it all, unable, ultimately, to always be together? And we mean it- we mean so much at the time- whispered, love-filled words, in those soft, quiet moments. These are the times when we haven't yet realised that our promises are already rotten in lies.

We'll try again. And again. Over and over, the pattern, our lifetime's dance, unchanging, never-ending. The downfall, for both of us. Nobody wins here, nobody is bested by the other. Neither one of us is left crying in the dust.

"It will be different this time," we say. Our voices are filled then with a new, hope-sated happiness.

And we mean it. There are no doubts on either side, niggling like maggots beneath the surface of our words, no uncertainty because it's so right just then. Because we are sure this time. This time, this time we will complete, make the distance, something will be different from all those other terrible, painful stop-starts. Because how can we feel this way and not be together? It will work. It will happen. It has to. Nobody else understands it. They say we should stop this, stop what we are doing to each other.

They think it's that easy.

"You're not good for one another," says one.

"It'll never work out; deep down you do know that," says another.

But it does. It does work, for a few weeks at least, a few months at the most. We're together. Nobody else matters. We are happy. We think, in those lush-full moments that we don't want to hear either their praise nor their criticism. It isn't needed, nothing is, not when we're together, not like this.

But then it starts, as it always does, as we promised it wouldn't, as we were convinced that it wouldn't, not this time. Our differences become glaringly obvious in the harsh light of day, our oddly-shaped arms and legs coming together and proving to our still rebellious eyes that we simply do not fit together.

Yet we try. This is the point where we start to fall, where we know how it all becomes the lie. We were so sure before that it would last. Now we are lying to each other, everyone else, and, above all, to ourselves. Our home becomes sad and strained, you sit at the table and look out onto the garden. Quiet. It's gone, we don't know where, and neither of us want to admit it first, call it first, say that we know the truth now. We avoid each other and your eyes cloud over, becoming distant and cold.

Then the fights begin. They're over nothing at first, just at the anger and frustration of it being gone again; but that soon changes. They go on and on, to the problems that are always there, that never go away and can never be forgotten, that we always, always come back to. The little, inescapable truths.

You become vicious, spitting fire, changing the frigidity and utter silence of our walls to one of hate and spit and smashed, cutting glass. I fight back, knowing exactly what to say to hurt you the most.

Until, inevitably, there's nothing left to say.

Your bag in the hall, defeat slumping your shoulders. You look away from me, and your pale-blonde hair wilts dejectedly on your forehead. You say that you are leaving, that you are going to a friend's, that you're not sure when you'll be back. I myself silently add the [if ever.]

And I don't try to stop you. Because I know. We both do. Just as we were convinced, at the beginning, that it was different, be different this time round.

My friends offer condolences, but behind their concern-filled eyes I see relief, a sense that I've come to my senses and that it will be All Be For The Best In The End.

I understand this one truth then, at that moment. We both do.

We just can't live together.

Until a few months pass and we meet once more, by chance occasionally and sometimes not. And it hits us all over again, the same familiar warmth and heat that we always feel, before the coolness and anger settle in.

And we believe it again, in those first few moments, that this time will be different, this time it will work. We are in our own place, our own time once more.

We are very happy for a while. We are there now.

You're lying beside me in the bed, pale expanse of back exposed, your legs tangled up in the sheets, weighing you down. When will we realise the truth, love?

When will we both understand?

We can't live together.

And, somehow, for some strange reason, we just can't live apart.