“Don’t you get it?”
I tried explaining to her. She wouldn’t and couldn’t understand.
“There is poison in my veins. If our hearts became one, you’d inevitably take it in. Save yourself. Walk away.”
She wouldn’t and couldn’t understand, she gave me every reassurance that it meant nothing to her. I could see the folly in her eyes. She didn’t see, couldn’t see. She wouldn’t see.
But can you blame me for letting her in anyway? I wanted love, too. How could I refuse the look in her eye? How could I deny it any longer?
So began the great exorcism that was my first love.
…
I clung to the ledge. I didn’t know what I wanted. I ended up here, overlooking the expanse of the city, oblivion laid out before me, for a reason. Still, though, I was too disoriented to comprehend what it was that I wanted. Too exhausted, too in pain to make a decision. But it doesn’t require much logical thought to run away — it didn’t require any mental energy to understand the simple truth:
I wanted the pain to end. That was what brought me here.
But there she was. I could see the hurt in her eyes, the difficulty and pain of seeing someone she held so near and dear to her heart ready to leap away. I knew her enough to realize that her entire life had been like that: those closest to her perpetually dangling by the ledge of oblivion, a pain more chronic and numbing than the acute blow of just losing them — finally, actually losing them.
I think I came to understand her indecision then. Life itself couldn’t decide. Life itself couldn’t decide what to do with her loved ones. All she knew was uncertainty, damn near from day one. What ground, what rock, had she?
And here I was, doing the very same thing to her. I’d do her a favor if I’d just jump, or if I’d just come climb off the ledge, come back to her, and vow to make my life better, and really, genuinely do it.
Instead, a deer in headlights was I. One oblivion or another. I looked to the hundreds of feet of distance below me. Then I looked to her. I could have reached out and grabbed her hand if I wished, and yet, the distance between us felt far greater — widening as I took her in — than the pavement that would mean finality.
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 