Monday's Rain

"Do not go with her."

That's what I wanted to say.  I wanted to stand in the rain and debate why conquering her was not the same thing as loving her.

You still love me.  I saw it in when you locked eyes with me, inches away from my face.  I wanted to be petty.  I wanted to scream that I was prettier than her.  I wanted to put my hand on your chest and command your heart to beat for me.  

"Take me instead." 

That's what I wanted to say.  I wanted to bleed out my forfeit on the dark sidewalk.  I wanted the rain to drown out our conversation.  I wanted to move the mountain of your ashes off my chest and dust you into the corners of my memory.  

How could a ghost be so handsome?  Every time I look at you, I see tornados in your flesh, natural disasters in the creases of your hands.  I see tsunamis in the whites of your eyes.

You kill me every time.  Every time I get back on my two feet and breathe air into my lungs, you kill me.  I want to know why I keep forgiving you for that, especially when you haven't attended any of my funerals.  

How much prayer keeps the devil out?

So I stood there and stared back at you, memorizing the face I had tried so hard to forget.  Still I had never seen a fallen angel as handsome as you.

You died with him.  I buried you.  And your ghost visits me more than his.  You don't pay rent here.  There is nothing here for you.  There is no one here for you.  And she cannot love you because that's not her destiny.  It was mine and though I walked away from my own fate makes me no less an owner of it.  

Love does not change.  We do.