Monday, May 28, 2012
at 10:12 PM;
leaving
by Felix Cheong
Four months to Brisbane and the knots
feel remarkably tight.
You can't box and airfreight
all your longings
when the air is still,
like the well in a frog
in a well.
The brisk bane of bills, parts
of your apartment falling apart,
the office in your head
you can't shut off,
riddles from a son
you can't get rid of -
how they span attention
in a conspiracy of noise.
But today
the excuses have wrung their hands dry.
There are forms to fill,
forms to inform,
forms to conform,
a chloroform face to greet
the Devil in details -
like passport photographs and income tax clerks -
when you depart through a door
awkward and half-closed.
Four months; the reality is rushing on fast, like the train at the end of the tunnel. I'm not sure I've settled anything adequately, not with family, friends, or loved ones. But I'll be damned if I don't try.
Your flowers are sitting on my desk as I type, another painful reminder of what I'm leaving behind and what I have missed, what we both have will miss; something that will soon be gone forever.
You say we will move on; a part of me believes that you don't actually think so, that these empty words spill from your mouth because you are doing the same thing I am - trying not to think about any of this; about us and what we could have been, what we will now never know.
Looking back at what I said those nights, I realise how naive I was. Three years' wait would've caused nothing but pain for both of us. I wish there was something I could do or say. You would probably just scold me for being depressed as usual, were you here.
And you're right, as usual.
This drama is too much for the both of us, so we're doing the only thing we can do - move on. It's something we're both good at - we compartmentalise feelings, emotions, problems, joy and ennui. It's this ability that bleeds through when I write, when I vent; the same ability that allows you to push aside whatever troubles you in life and climb so high.
For a long while I thought I was unworthy of you, and I'm sure you thought the same. I am still glad that you came down to my level eventually - but remembering what you said about equality, I see now perhaps that this was for the best.
So it comes to this now - us grasping at the sand slowly falling through our fingers, into other lives and places away from our own. You have irreversibly taken a piece of me, and I hope I have repaid in kind. As our shadows lengthen and our days grow short, I want to enjoy them with you, for you - while they last.
the rest is silence;
