My Picture
Their love affair
Was coming to an end
He'd felt the shadow
Of it
For a while now
It started
With subtle
Changes
In her ways with him
Then ones so drastic
And harsh
He wondered
If their love
Had ever even really been
She couldn't see
How her actions
Sliced through him
Like a knife
His cries and pleas
Were mute to her now
Any that penetrated through
Just served to irritate
And push her further
Away
This,
In return
Pushed him further into his
Resentments
And away
From himself
And he realised
Now
He'd lived in a small cave
In his mind.
Where he'd painted
A beautiful picture
With all the passion
And commitment
Of a ressiansance
Artist.
Her careless
And
Thoughtless ways
Infiltrated his cave
Vandalised his picture
Stripping the luminous colours,
Dazzling scenes,
Corroding its magic
The more he saw this
The more tainted
Damaged
And darker his soul became
Anxiety
Resentment
And pain became his daily bread
He didn't know this version of her
He didn't want to
But he couldn't leave
Becuase
Of small moments
When they held each other,
A certain look in her eye,
Or turn of her head.
Her childlike ways.
He should have accepted it
There and then
Should have known
That small moments
Were just small moments
He should have
Ran
Closed the doors of himself
Held his head high
Instead he refused it
And with blind hope turned away
From all that screamed in his face
And
Focused on his picture
Painting more furiously each day
To preserve this beautiful image
His masterpiece
Their future
If only she would stop
And be the girl she was
Or the girl she'd appeared to be
Or most terrifying of all
The girl that had never existed
He was half starved now
Broken and lost
Existing in a different reality
That he was loosing himself
More and more
Too
Then all versions of her left
His reality shattered
And he sat in that
small cave
Of his dark
Lonely
Muddled brain
And stared at his picture
Relentlessly
Filled with anxiety
As everything he had
Worked for
Longed for
Destroyed himself for
Slowly started to disintegrate
Into the meaningless nothing
It had always been
His picture is gone now
So is that man
He has learnt many lessons
Dragging the pieces of himself out of his cave
He's older
Worn at the edges
And Corners
But
He's existing in this reality
Finding himself again
His soul
Slowly expanding within him
For him
And only him
He's learnt how to treasure it
And keep it safe.
His heart
And mind
His own
And he revels
In it
Sometimes
On gloomy
Dark days
That picture
flashes through him
It can still make his eyes
Brim with tears
It can make nostalgia
And melancholy swarm
All around him
But
Only for a while
And in those moments he wonders
Why
Must we drown
In a cherry picked
Sea
Of our own desires?
Copyright © Rachel Ross | Year Posted 2020
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