I stand, and...if even for but a moment, I feel as if I'm waiting for something. For a long time coming I can't identify what it is, but even that fact alone is unsurprising--it's dark, it's stormy, and I'm rendered incapable of making sense of anything in an environment like this. In my thoughts there's a swirling rain, in my thoughts there's a dark and musky night...in my thoughts, there's you.

Even when I think I've escaped these kinds of thoughts--this feeling of waiting, and of longing--I'm haunted by the remnants of the destruction we created together. Every night, after night, a memory plays out to me. It's vivid, it's real, like it was only yesterday. A memory of standing in the cold, swirling rain of the past; a memory of the drops beating down on the leaves of the oak tree, the shafts of the roof. The water slips down inbetween the cracks, of a glass door I stand outside of; when I press my hand to it, it trickles down inbetween my fingers, the chill running off the back of my hand.

My ragged clothes are drenched, pressed up against my body--my thick hair, too, stuck to my forehead. I have little energy left in this moment, but still, through tired eyes I peer through the cracked glass, to see you inside. Your back is to me, but you sit quietly, wrapped up in a thin blanket watching the fireplace--it's burnt out now, the wood blackened from the pouring through the chimney; there is nothing to see, yet still, it's as if you remain unaware of my existence.

I can't call out, because I have no voice--can't open the door, when the locks protect the cold hard shell like castle walls. My only purpose for being here, my only reason to exist in this state, is to realize and to accept the harsh truth, the reality of the storm among us.

I lower my head like a dog who was just scolded, thoughts swirling like the rain. What was I to expect, after all? My hand is still pressed to the glass--the drops that slip down are only our own blood, together, shattered and mixed together so that we no longer know whose pain is whose. The way the drops never cease to keep beating down makes me feel like a murderer--the way they can stay beaded together, clutching tight to the very moments they hit the cold ground, makes me feel so terribly alone.

I remember a time, so vivid and lively, when we were beaded together, holding on tight through the ups and the downs on life. Until we hit the ground, each fell into an abyss, each bounced off of each other--and now, we are only blood, only pain, the murderers of the murder we are. It's a painful truth to realize, a painful fact to bear.

And even now--I'm somehow here, at least, standing, breathing, without you by my side. You are here--yes, but this isn't like before. I feel weak, knowing that there's no time to change what has been done, knowing that nothing will ever be the same. This is how things have to be, now--with us far apart, like parallel lines who see each other yet never meet--or even any other pair, who cross once, in a beautiful and glorious moment, and venture off from that moment forever. It is the heartbreaking truth that I am learning to accept, ever so painfully, agonizingly slowly.

That is it--that is all this is about. That slow, dull pain, creeping through my body. The remnants of the past, the destruction we created, the loneliness despite us not alone. We were together and now we are not, and that is simply that.

I stand, and by a fleeting moment, I'm waiting for something. I'm waiting for the painful, hard, and unchangeable truth to sink into my thoughts, and then, into my heart.

It is not that I am alone--I'm not. There you are, on the other side of the cracked glass, there you are. It's not being alone that causes a pain of this extent. No, it is that solid, unbearable truth that changes everything.

That even now, somehow, I am without you.