The Fight

The First Light awakens the mind and my eyes open to a white ceiling. A restless night permitted some hours of sleep, but the recollection of events from the previous day begins to profoundly weigh on my chest. When we say, “that’s heavy” in reference to a sad topic it acknowledges the power behind an emotion that forms an anchor in the core of our bodies.

My eyes project The Fight onto the white ceiling and revisit the awful occurrences. It was no argument—that would require two parties listening to each other. We yelled over one another, spitting our words, hanging in the air, and settling with the dust. Somewhere, encased within our fleshy layers and strings of sensory, lays the center of our soul. Productions of abstract love solidify through expressive representations, but the blaring hate escapes through a steaming quadrant of our bodies. It stung the atmosphere, providing a catalyst to instigate pride and absolute humility upon one another. Marriage is the sanctity of two souls coming together as one, but last night portrayed a separation that caused pain with full knowledge behind their feats. The vows turned to ink on a paper and the kiss disintegrated with our corrosive words.

Then, defeat settled in my body and spread to my limbs. I could no longer fight with her and said my empty apologies. She said nothing. Her eyes said nothing and her body stood rigid. I remembered the beautiful things her body did and what her eyes spoke. They transformed before me that night.

Recollecting, I hear the slam of a car door and the engine sputtering with noise that ripples against the light, grey morning sky. The squeal of tires against the asphalt suggests a tendency to rush out of the driveway and escape its memories embedded in the tire tracks. She leaves behind her home, her previous life, and her husband. In another life, I would have been more inclined to take down my own barriers and plead with her to tell me what she felt. I would have been able to read those eyes and see a raging storm drowning in its own rain. I would have been able to see her body glowing with exasperation and see it become imprinted within her soul.

So why am still here? I couldn’t move—didn’t want to lift my body out of these sheets that kept their palms on my arms, legs, and torso. I think I’m aware of when something has it’s ending. Everything becomes so quiet and so empty as your life begins to make its transition into something else. Your mind takes a second to comprehend and in that time is where your previous life slips away into an abyss. The next second fills itself with the emotions of realizing how different your surroundings become and what has happened.

My marriage is over.