text: She was strong, she was independent; she was weak, she was dependent. On a brisk August morning the door of homely stature rises above. It's marked by the flesh wounds that the chipping white paint had left behind. A condensed commotion rips open the thin air streamed only by the dusk and timid sounds of nature. A burst into what seems an abyss. From behind the fog, the slow, red-orange mass creates her silhouette. A tall figure. Stomping one foot after the other, a rhythm sung by her boot and the stone echo out. She uses this cadence as a mark to her new beginning. She glides across the overgrown greens smattering the crevasses. Reaching for the old sedan. Four doors, yet rarely more than two inside. Rarely. She jerks her hand for the handle like she's done this over and over. It's the first. It’s most certainly the last. The door screams into the quiet dewy morning. Surely she awoke a neighbor or two, but mind not that. She felt a sickness to think they might have been aware. But alas what has been done, alas what is being done, and alas what will be done. It's all history, at some point or another. Her history with him was built on a rather contrast ideal to what was now present. This history of hers and his as well, a sort of beauty. A sort of calmness, collect, not at any time cataclysmic. Alas. They shared what they wanted, they shared what they had; a beauty seeming to never cease. The start, just as abrupt as its end. She hadn't expected to get involved in this. She hadn't expected to be so invested. Yet she had. She did. It became who she was. He was who she was. They were the same. Or at the very least, in her mind, she was he. And that gave comfort to her mind. That gave her the sense of being. On a trip outside her regular schedule she tripped into the face of love. The very thing she had been unaware of for so long. For all of what seemed forever. She wasn't ready, but ready at the same exact time. It was a first, it was a flower. It had to be cherished. She and he really connected in beautiful ways. They became entangled. From the moment they met to every waking, every sleeping moment. They had something together. It was innocent love. It was pure. It began as said, when she had strayed from what she knew. She found something unexpected. She had to go grocery shopping last minute. A picky aunt coming to eat had not given the full list of dietary restrictions. "Well that's tough shit," she thought... as she continued to gather her things up, readying to leave work 45 minutes early to make time for the extra shopping. She didn't want to have to. But had to. So she went. The store, dimly lit on the corner of O’Connell and Garrison had practically everything she needed. And more. Looking for a certain specific pain in the ass item, a vegan-free, nut allergic, gluten stuffed turkey leg for the aunt. "It's something I've honestly never heard of ma'am." The young man behind a stand of peas and corn said. As he turned to face his questioner, he gives out a glazing smile. A warmth, a hug in mid-air, a stranger's love. She flustered, she flirted, she, flabbergasted, left the store in such a hurry she never caught a name. Never caught him, quite. Three days pass and she finds herself wound back into this poorly stocked grocery searching for her own food. Searching for what she is usually looking for. He's there again. He's now having to make a quick run. They connect again however, time pressing fuck off, they make their own time right there in the middle of the white and smudged tile floor, the squares corralling the two together. It all takes off. Both their busy scheduled lives, make time. They continue to make their own time, like gods of space and the molecular, they infinitely explode with passion for the other. It led to one thing, it led to another. They developed as two people; they developed as one. Their lives led physically to a home, a car, a place together. Mentally melded. Of course, however, grass grows. Weeds prop up. Bugs crawl; leaves quiver. They found distance between. New to them, and worrisome. She fought that. She dug into him. Used her nails to latch on, but he was scared. He didn't know what to do. So it was said. They let the distance stay. It became their third. They continued; they laughed, cried, sighed. Their third however, had another effect on the two. He was peppier with it. She had grown to despise its presence. The third darkened. Deep darkness. Then as abrupt as the spark of love, that third deepened into a silhouette, against a bright, red anger. She understood it all and understood nothing at once. A tragic melt of being. Self-worth fuck all, he still meant the world to her. He was a worthless piece of shit to her. She was worth even less. She sat up. Red beaming into the dark of the room. 5:46. She stood up. Towering her body above his. A strut to the door. She's not hiding.