The noise of the volatile drivers whipping by had quieted not out of courtesy but to reign in the thumping sounds marching around in my head. They were accompanied by songs of fanaticism and stupidity, and accentuated with an internal gasp that I strategically ignored, like I had so many times before.

At each introduction to the sound of footsteps my heart jumped because I knew something had to be a said. Another piece had to be moved that would either expose me to my surrender or keep me gallivanting into the knight of hope and potential destruction.

So in many ways I had hoped each passerby to be a dog walker, a homeless wanderer, a deliverer, or even myself coming to nudge me and take me away. While they had not come on as a kid, I had wished my unfound powers of teleportation would glitch me to the other side of the world where the air so unique and unfelt I had not a time to think about it. A place where technology ceased to exist. Where connection not to the outside world, but to her world knew no possibility. So that in a way I was relieved of my duties.

The cowardice was comforting, and only better accommodated by my pathetic desire for ultimate control. I had ten stories to tell to her. All of which spun brilliantly the chance of a future with a secret option for me to never truly commit. I felt dirty and triumphant, but ultimately the world was closing in on the truth. A feast I would not attend.

The smile seduced me, the obsession intrigued me, and the egoism jolted me into a high that I never wanted to come down from. But I did. In the end I wreaked of doubt. I was drowning in confusion. And the heat of insanity began to fan flames in my direction.

We fashioned a fortress called winter. We fabricated a blocked entry to the outside, the outside of us. An excuse we cuddled up to and frequented when our insecurities sat at our bedside. Through the winter cold and white blankets of snow we hid and forcefully warmed each other up with the pathetic remains of our lies.

And when the spring rains washed it away we sat hidden under our canopy made of desperation and nostalgia, but when May hit, it was as if the world started to move away from us. It was as if the sun exposed us. It was as if the cancerous mass was now illuminated by the brightness of the summer waiting to be cut out and disposed of. It was as if we were somehow put on trial by the turning of the season, and given only an opportunity to curse the mother of natures or the father of all times. But both had a convenient absence that day on the steps.  

Though I feared moving from that spot. I felt that the fall in each direction would be so extreme I’d be unable to recover from it. I felt that the climb had been so fierce and painstaking, that the inevitable descent would surely kill me. But even then, that wasn’t the real reason I sat there on those steps. It wasn’t so I could float weightlessly in a liminal state ungoverned, untouched, and unscathed.

The real reason I sat there was because I knew I had already made my decision, but I wished above all to pay homage to an eternal greatness I had never before discovered. To kneel at the altar of the singularity between us, and to leave every bit of desire right on those steps. So that if the eye in the sky had even an ounce of mercy you’d feel it the second you returned and walked up those steps. So that even the empty house you unknowingly sought to enter was at least anointed by a force so strong you’d still feel at home. A force that one-day would flow in through the windows and brush gently across your cheek giving you, for a fraction of time, a feeling that you once felt every second of the day.

Every second leading up to this day I felt I was a mad man swinging in every direction a sword that was to sever the tie to the unique niche we had carved out leaving ultimately the “once life” forever final. But in that moment, I began visualize it. The rendering of a map. A way out for the caged demons that sullied your soul. And a means above all else to finally meet with yourself in that garden you found yourself lost in. That is all I could have hoped. So as the cab began to peel up to the walkway. I grimaced in getting up. Grabbing my small bag and an archaic typewriter, that I used to sort my bid. And as I walked away from those steps I felt one last grab by a hand that was never there. One last attempt at relapse. One last point of worry. One last memory.

I quickly got in. I motioned to the driver. And away it was to never again. And every ounce of me begged to look behind me. To have one more longing of you walking around that corner. But I didn’t because it was your turn to find the end of the road, to leave it there and smile that it once was.