You Don't Live Here Anymore

A dust-filled fall day. Was it a misalignment from the universe, as rays of sun shone brilliantly through tree branches. A mound of red, yellow, and burnt-orange was swept under the porch steps. A few dry leaves remained lingering on the ground. A few were crushed under the weight of a metal rake.

She felt the hustle of the wind. And then he appeared up the walkway. He picked up a dried leaf. And handed it to her. A peace offering. Or an omen she should not accept.

He was the love of her life. Yet, he was the pain in her life. His dark hair parted in the middle, loose hair covering his forehead as he grinned. His olive green jacket matched the leaf he had chosen. The leaf was pushed closer to her face.

She shook her head. He shoved the leaf closer and closer to her face, finally up to her nose. She winced, her back against a large maple tree from where the leaves had fallen. And she laughed. Thinking back to days when all she did was laugh with him. His cute antics, and gestures. His sweetness, and loyalty. She fell in love at twenty-seven. He was twenty-one.

Handsome, charming and cunning. She ended up supporting him, and his bad habits. He gambled, pretended to work odd jobs. And drank. Then yelled, and screamed. And most of all he controlled her.

Yet she knew his pain. She felt his ache. She understood his life. As a child he was locked in a closet for punishment. He was scolded, and hit with a belt, berated that he must take over the family recycling business.

He was young, and he had her. She enabled him. She wanted him. And he wanted her and her assets all to himself.

He pushed the leaf up her nostril. Shaking her long locks of earth-brown hair, along with moving her head abruptly away, she broke away from the tree. Turning her back she ran up the wooden porch steps towards the house.

He followed. The leaf still in his hand. He tried to pick up another. She shook her head again.

He nodded. The love in his eyes remained. She nodded. The love in her eyes remained, entrenched in pain.

They both stood. He walked up the porch steps, past her. He was going to go into her home. The home she built on her own. The home he had no right to be in. He had destroyed her.

She ran to him. Standing in front to block him. Shaking her head. And then her finger.

He shook his head. With his finger he circled a heart on his chest. She loved how he created a lightness in her being. In the same fell swoop, he pushed in the sword of pain. Just like that, he crumpled the leaf and smothered it all over her head.

She was annoyed. But...

Now he was dying. Alone he drank himself into sickness. His shelf life was limited. And so was their time together.

She sat on the porch swing, and patted the spot beside her. In a blink of an eye he was sitting beside her.