Time's Beating Heart

CW: Suicide or self-harm, mental health

We started the dance without hearing the caller, led by instinct rather than order. Trusting a feeling that didn’t make sense and hoping the other felt just as intense, the world slipped away for a moment in time and revealed two souls already entwined.

But the contra requires progressing through partners, so we followed the steps like dutiful darters. Aware of the motive but guilty ourselves of denying the truth it surely compels- sensations unknown are scary at first and intensity soars when feelings aren’t versed. The distance created is much needed space, with sureness of union in due time and due place.

While watchful and waiting we engage with our ‘others’, but absorbed with distraction, it eventually smothers. No longer enthused as the clouds start to cover what once was our passion now conjures a shudder. We release who’s before us and retreat to a place where no one can measure our every mistake. We hide with our demons and hide from each other 'til straight from the shadows we wake in the gutter. Wounded and battered but done to ourselves we attach to our judgement and continue to whelve.

But time has a heart and seeking that beat we’re led to each other while walking the street. Once face to face we feel like we’ve won, and the pull of the web we’ve unwittingly spun reels in the rope, the race, and the run revealing a world that almost feels fun. Safe and cocooned in the realm we created the feeling is clear- it can only be sacred. But love isn’t something we feel we deserve, and soon we’re retreating in suspect reserve.

We know how to give but if we receive, we’d be too exposed and surely one’d leave. But the past is no secret and still we remain. Then what of the future; could it be slain? The question we’ve asked ourselves time and again- we fear if it’s spoken the other will wane and the chord that unites us will turn into chain, crippling us both in heartache and pain. Frightened to stay but more so to leave, we stare at each other forgetting to breathe. Then slowly let go and return to the dance assured by the beat that we both will advance.

Moving about with new partners in life, we can’t even fathom a ‘husband and wife’. What’s natural to most feels empty to us, until the day comes where we join and combust. It wasn’t on purpose, intended, or planned, but facing each other we both understand that what we are feeling cannot be banned, and so ‘you and I’ must go 'hand-in-hand’ and slip to a place we can’t comprehend.

Time falls away and everything stops while the world spins around us not letting us drop. With others involved, the behavior is wrong but being together we know we belong. Still terrified the fragile dynamic could shatter, neither will hinder the moment with chatter. The future can now be considered irrelevant. We connect in the moment accepting the hell of it- this feeling exceeds all love, lust, or sentiment, it even exceeds reality’s element.

…

The eventual fallout was peacefully done, though quiet and distant, like always, it stung. The music had stopped as well as the dancing, and the years that went by brought new understanding. The pull toward each other wasn’t wrong or imagined, but looking back now would they change what had happened?

Perpetuating creeds was a habit they shared. The truth, eachother, and how much they cared always withered and died before it was aired, leaving them wounded, and wondering, and scared. What would have happened if one of them dared? Is it too late, with too many layers? And what would they do if they met unawares? Their lives would be ruined, their relationships over, but deep in thier souls they’re craving the closure.

They’re older and wiser and by now they know better, but something is pulling inside more than ever. Resisting a touch is the only salvation but all it would take is one hesitation to send to the other a free invitation- with longing and love, their hearts revelation, of joining together in complete desperation and finally choosing to stay the duration. All would be lost of the lives that they know, so wouldn’t that cost prove to be too much to go? Why should they do this? What makes them so special? To loved ones, they’d certainly seem like a Jekyll. And the demons inside him still threaten to surface reminding them both to believe in their purpose. Have faith that their paths would indeed cross again; just let the unspoken be savior and friend.

Until, the day came he felt closer than ever. He was here; she could feel it. But what was the matter? She glanced at the clock to check on the time, but it apparently stopped around quarter past nine. She left it alone and continued the day, fighting attention that drifted his way. This battle was constant, but today it felt different- the nearness and distance was oddly resistant. Struggling to sleep as she lay in her bed, she rose the next day to learn he was dead. He took his own life the morning before, and she felt his absence down to her core. How could he leave her? Why would he go? Didn’t he know he was never alone? Didn’t he feel that she was the one? Wasn’t there faith in what they’d begun?

Now she was left with decades ahead. The future she’d avoided discussing with dread was staring her down inside her own head. The memories and dreams that were fought, fueled, and fled, awaited expulsion but flared up instead. With nowhere to go she retreated to bed and prayed every night that he’d pull on the thread leading her back in the dance they had tread, healing the wounds left open that bled, and whispering the words remaining unsaid … she longed for the heartbeat that time had misled.