3:00 am

I wasn’t trying to save you,
That’s the lie I tell myself now.
Because save sounds so arrogant,
It sounds like I thought I knew better,
Like I thought I was a hero.
I wasn’t a hero, heros have good status.
I got insomnia, and so good at answering the phone at 3:00 am.
Good at deciphering silence,
Good at treating every sigh like a fire alarm.
Convincing myself that exhaustion was good evidence of love.
And you, You became a full-time restoration project.
Like a cathedral under scaffolding.
A garden that swore it needed rain while pulling up every seed I planted.


I watered that garden with my everything.
time, patience, money, sanity, years,
you name it!
If it wasn’t nailed down, I offered it.
If it was nailed down, I found a crowbar.
Every time you collapsed,
I convinced myself that standing under the rubble was the same as helping.
People had warned me.
Not that they were cruel,
They could just see that I had mistaken drowning with someone for teaching them how to swim.


But I had faith,
And faith is a beautiful thing.
Right up until it became an excuse.
You said you wanted out, I drew you the maps.
You said you couldn’t see the light, I became the electricity.
You said you were freezing, and I set myself on fire.
The funny thing about becoming some sort of heat, you don’t see the smoke.


Then came to cheating.
Such small words for such a large event.
Like copying homework, or cutting corners.
Like it wasn’t demolition charges wired into our foundations.
Afterwards, there were explanations.
Explanations.
Entire novels written to avoid saying the 1 sentence.


“I chose this”


It was just a circumstances,
Misunderstandings,
Bad timings,
Complicated feelings,
But accountability?
Anything except accountability.
Everything except the truth.
Yet somehow,
I end up apologizing for discovering and feeling hurt about it.
Which is impressive if you think about it.
It’s like getting hit by a car and feeling guilty about leaving a dent.


But eventually, I got tired.
Not angry, not bitter, just tired.
Tired in the way an abandon building is tired.
Tired in the way an old bridge is tired after all the all the weight it’s been holding up.
So I stopped.
Not dramatically,
No speeches,
No slammed doors,
I just put the tools down for the first time in years to discover that the world keeps spinning without me trying to hold it together.
Imagine that!
A garden grew or I didn’t.
A cathedral either fell or it stood.
Bad weather arrives without permission.
Slowly, the person who i neglected most starts returning.


Me!


Then one day the phone rings.
Of course it had.
Because stories love symmetry,
So there you were.
Saying sorry,
Needing help.
Explaining how things aren’t as they seemed.
How I never understood.
How the damage looks different from your angle, and guess what?
I listen.
Genuinely listened.
Because I did love you once.
But then I realized something.


You were still talking angles,
Explaining circumstances and describing appearances months later,
While standing in the smoke insisting that there was never a fire.
That’s when I knew.
I hadn’t failed to save you,
I failed to join the rescue.
There’s a difference,
A massive one.
Because I did everything,
You did everything except the one thing that mattered.


The work!


So no!
I won’t rebuild any bridge.
I won’t relight a furnace.
I won’t be become emergency housing for a disaster that refuses to evacuate.
You don’t miss me,
You just miss access to me.
That’s not the same thing, not even close.
I know that now,
Because the person I spent years trying to save!
Has finally survived!
For once, that person was me!