The Fear

I cleaned out that old closet under the stairs where we used to keep the stuff we didn't want, but couldn't bring ourselves to throw out for one reason or another. That broken lamp, a wobbly chair and the hardcore winter boots you bought me. Not once did we go where there's snow.

Of yours I found nothing but dust. I would say fading memories of us, but some are much too vivid. The apartment no longer resembles that nest we built with a student's budget and the excitement over buying a generic coffee machine. Everything is new and shiny, all your old shit has been thrown out.

Except that here I am, writing about you once again. No, I don't love you.

I don't hate you either. I just wish you never existed.

You see, I don't know how to function anymore.  I don't know what being a good guy is and I certainly don't know how to do the right thing. I don't know when to give in and when to give all, when to resign and when to push through. I don't know how to LOVE.

You didn't take my heart, you took my compass. And here I am fluttering uncontrollably between two gusts of wind and the looming storm overhead.

I am not lost without you, I am lost because of you. And finding my way back to love has proven to be the single most difficult and lonely journey I've ever embarked on.

As I float adrift in this ocean of doubt, my greatest fear lurks around me like a shadow in murky waters.

It's the dread that keeps me staring at the ceiling all night,
the horror that clutches my heart with a bony grip
and squeezes tauntingly

The fear that I've become you.