neither kindness, mercy or forgiveness.

"If this is too much for you...," he exhales, but never finishes the thought to which we both know its conclusion.

Maybe this time it is. I can't help feeling awkwardly out of place in the company of his hissed curses and my panicked, flailing arms desperately searching for a rewind button that doesn't exist. I am no longer leaking water, but taking on pools of lead and the stifled sobs within me would rather overtake my person like hungry depths of sea. At maximum capacity my words become lost to reckless breaths, my face is hot and contorted with tears. I know that this pending eruption will poison my soul if I cannot release it so I plead with him to hang up until he concedes.

His exasperation is so palpable that it has taken on a presence in even my room. I imagine his stoic order of ale, a timeless solution to the midnight lover's quarrel. I know him and yet I am bewildered by the means of this transaction, how it came to this intersection and failed to yield. We were whole before we were wreckage...

[we were, right?]

Closing my phone, I place it delicately onto my nightstand, turn away from it and bury myself in all 600 threads. No one else is home and I don't care if I can be heard beyond my walls. For every fairytale that this is not, for every inflated tax paid to distance and time, for every four letter word combination that would never encompass this fury and heartbreak, for every war ever waged, I protest in choking wails.