He and/is Me...

HE crouches in the corner, wound up as a spring. Piercing eyes flash only as a response, there is no light within HIM, only dark. HIS muscles are contorted, claws dug in the dirt. HE seethes, waiting for signs of life, hoping the last blow delivered was enough to end it, secretly wishing for another chance.

I think I'm solid, but the reality is, I'm feeble as a sprout. Too little limelight, not enough sunshine. I know my nemesis lay waiting, so I feign death, knowing HE may very well be the reaper, or at least a relative, unfooled by my act. This time I think it's easier to be dead, to end this war, once and for all.

Tactically, my defense is simple, use enough opposable force to smote HIM.  There is a weapon that I suspect might end him, but I've never used it, and a weapon unused is a useless weapon. The fear makes me jittery, like a first-timer lighting a short fuse. And who cares if I die in the fight, as long as I take HIM with me?

Theatricality and deception are powerful agents to the uninitiated.

And I am uninitiated. I've never one even a single battle, my chances of winning the war, waning.

I hear, I hate you, with such malice, it oozes from HIM. I hate HIM back.

I reply, And I you, revealing that I was only possum to HIS fox.

I take hold of the only weapon I haven't used, not knowing how far back to stand to avoid being collaterally damaged. Unused is useless. But you don't simply enter the code and press launch. To unlock and engage takes courage. And I am afraid of HIM.

HE lunges from the dark, close-lining me to the ground. A cheap shot, taken after noting the wobble in my knees.

My instant autonomic response is to stay down. But something beckons.

 Get! Up! It says. No, demands

Meanwhile, HE waits. Sure this time is no different from the countless others. HE toys in a way only someone with multiple wins can. A TKO is one knock down away. HIS back is to me.  I rise. A cheap taunt.

I can't beat HIM at HIS own game so I try another. One I avoided, always. I do everything to keep my quivering knees a secret. HE senses my renewed energy and says, "You'll kill us both," over a shoulder.

The lunge forward is awkward both because HE moves laterally and because I've little experience with this tactic. HE dodges, turns, and delivers a blow to my sternum that should do me in, but HE's still toying. Which for once, is to my advantage, because something is different. HE faces me in a defensive stance with a caution too often uncalled for.

You won't win, HE assures.

I know. I slump. My chest aches. My heart feverishly pumps blood from battered chambers. Air in. Air out. Each breath excruciating.

Air in, calm.

Air out, focus.

Turning, I see HIM, HIS face washed in worry.

Don't. He snaps.

Nothing is tensed. My muscles are completely relaxed. My mind, still.

DON'T! HE screams as HE dives, nearly through me. We both fall like timbering oaks. Scrambling, HE pins me to the ground.

My mind races. HIS grip tightens. That's it, fight.

Air in, calm.

Air out, focus.

I mouth, I love you. HIS grip loosens. I whisper it, void of feeling, still testing.

HE falls back and leaps up instantly. I remain supine.

"I love you." I say, pitying HIM. Pain shoots through us both. I refocus and say again, I love you, with empathy. HE drops to one knee.

I say again, I love you, and HE holds up a defensive hand for the first time and grunts, "Stop," through grit teeth.

I step toward HIM, for the first time, ever.

I reach out but HE bats me away, still powerful, but is momentum lacks surety, confidence.

I step in, not to strike, but to gain surer footing. I reach around, pulling and stepping into HIM. The closer I draw, the more HE writhes, panicked, desperate to break free.

But my hold is unyielding.

When HE's close enough to hear without any added inflection on my part, I simply add...

and i always will...

and feel HIM disappear.

Acknowledgement...

I chop garlic while Genesis asks where Superman has gone to now. The melody sinks deep into the recesses.Translucent onions act like windows to the past. I've done this before. In my home. In as normal a life as I have ever experienced. I am transported back to when she was in the corner, reading. 

My beacon. 

The comfort of knowing your best friend sat not more than a few feet away wrapped me like a wool blanket, soft with age and the time it took to really know someone. 

I cooked. To feed doesn't come close to explaining what breaking bread meant to us. We cooked to share. Normalcy defined.   

She stirred. I stirred. The onions were done.

Normal was infinite. Both defined and undefinable in the hands of interpretation, I defined it by how happy I was at the time. But my old normal was replete with chaos, making this new normal feel unreal, in both a positive and negative sense. 

Pearl Jam thumped into a long intro, WMA. Eddie Vedder mumbled beneath rolling drums. Dirty his hands, it comes right off. I rinsed the aroma of garlic off my hands as the skillet billowed its fragrance into the kitchen air. The smell wafted into where she sat, peering over her glasses to watch me shake my skinny white ass. I was into it, the cooking, the music, the intoxicating normalcy.

I felt home. Not a home we knew and recreated. One we built for ourselves. 

The way we wanted. 

The new normal.

Use the man you are and measure it up to the man you want to be, I'd heard more than once, twice, a hundred times. I did this repeatedly while we were together and always came up short. The old normal ruminated, refusing to sever its ties, ties that bound, constricted, and held me back. Can the two be reconciled? 

The old normal swept me away when I wasn't looking, wasn't working on keeping the ghosts at bay.

My body rejected the new normal like an incompatible organ. The old normal grew like moss, blanketing, suffocating, draining the new. The new normal fell apart. The old rolled in on road scarring treads, like a regime, back for revenge, with a full memory of being abandoned. It encompassed all the ego and twice the brash of an ousted dictator, who knows nothing about love. The old reigned again.

It didnt take long for the old normal to take me back to the same place it always does. So why return? What wasn't learned in the thousand other times I was here? What more do I have to pay attention to?

I left the new normal for the old and almost died. The old normal wants me dead, or at least subservient to its antiquated doctrine that I am the kind of shit that needs to be eradicated or at least alone.

She answered when I called from rock bottom and pulled me from the rubble. She poured me into the mold forged by her faith that I could have all I've ever wanted, I just had to reach out and take it. 

Because that's what her faith in me told her. 

I learned from this that the old normal needs attention, its due, if its ever to be integrated. I need to handle its fagility with care, let it know that its ok to hurt, stumble, fall. 

But I want normal back. A new one. One where the old can't get to me. I pine for it as I cook broccoli soup for myself. The man I want to be calls out from the darkness. He works undercover, throwing me images of his potential to love, live, and be truly happy. With each instance he sheds a little more light onto his opaque frame, filling it with a touch of color, of substance. Can he emerge? Will he?

I ponder this without her, believing her faith wasn't her mistake. Maybe she was right.

if only...