flood

It's to safe to say you've left a mark, quite literally, on me this week. As the darkness wanes, I can't help but wish for the sharp, fresh pain to come back. Clean and jolting to the touch. The first seconds of the aftermath is always so exciting. Before the dilution of doubt, of analysis, of hope.

I wish I could stay in that moment. The first seconds of coming down after having been so high. The lazy drift toward the ground. The certainty of what just happened, and what will surely happen again. The unbelievable entitlement to such delights and their future promised recurrence. I struggle to keep Hope from slipping in, for she is always a double-edged sword, beautiful to the fortunate and oh so cruel to those who are not. I run around shutting all the windows and doors and nooks in my brain, so it would not sift in anywhere. Still, as I whip my head around the middle of the room I know it would come, after which my fate leaves me, either to plummet from great heights or to be mercifully kept afloat.

A shutter opens, and I see it edging closer. The thing about Hope is that it will be the last certainty, after which nothing is knowable, but before which even a fool will sense its coming. I touch the mark you left absentmindedly, its pain already dulled to an afterthought as I stand here, waiting for Hope to flood my windows and doors, waiting for it to defeat me.

**