The Craftsman’s Table

Photo by KT on Unsplash

We stayed together, rotting together, hating each other, relying on one another, desperately avoiding loneliness. Young and stupid becomes old and cursed. It’s a funny thing the fallout of a relationship, you might not miss a beat, you may not even have loved the song, but the silence is crushing, give us anything but the absence of sound

We become addicts, the idea of quitting too painful an option, even for us in the most destructive of relationships. Deathly afraid to lack the security of meaning. Change maybe the only constant, but it’s a terrifying thing to a person who’s broken, trying to piece themselves back together again. Change is a knock to the craftsman’s table, trying to fix a delicate vase

But we are fickle things aren’t we? We don’t really need our lovers to be nice, we forsake our morals as long as we’re loved. Oh and how nice it is to be loved. I’m not even sure we would like each other if we weren’t so in love with one another. Attraction is a terrible bait indeed then. It reels us in to a chase where the route and reward are obscured, but commit and you start the journey.

At first I thought you stole years from me, my pride and my dignity. But I realise now I gambled those for stakes in the race and I lost. I don’t blame you anymore. I don’t hate you anymore. It’s pointless obsessing whether you left with more of me than I did

I’m whole now, pieced back together and filled with words and stories and jokes and broken pieces of the last life I lived. I keep them there to remind me what I am made from; a thousand lives smashed to pieces, and you’re just another one I’ve overcome