Morning Walk - 1. Chapter 1

Morning Walk

Chapter One: Ritual

What is life without your love? The view out my window is just as beautiful. You just don’t see it. Coffee in the morning. You don’t smell it. I grab my coat. But yours is gone. The wind still plays with me as I walk, caressing and tossing my hair. You don’t bump shoulders with me. The big trees bring smiles to my face. I swear you peed on more trees then the dogs. My dogs gambol back and forth. They miss you too. The morning fog has wrought a dream. Without you it has been a nightmare. And I pace the field with silent dread. Without you. I must put this all into perspective. I need time and distance. A daily ritual it has become. How much time and distance. Placing you and me in perspective. I have put your pictures away. Here I stand alone and there beside me is an empty space filled with memory. I sleep wearing your old sweatshirt still. Memory reaches out and takes my hand and tugs, pulling all those strings. I have a box full of your crap. It is like music at first, always. You never came back for it. And then the first string breaks and the music ends and the wailing begins. You would be appalled, the wailing is off key. That makes me laugh. Hollow and empty. But I turn and continue to walk away from Memory.

I’m climbing the small hill across the field because I like it at the top. It is a high point in the surrounding area. Why should I give up my walk because I once shared it with you. Why should I abandon my place on top of the hill simply because I once lay there with you from sunset to sunrise making love with body and soul and mind. Why should I give up on life, on love, on myself. I had no answers yesterday or the day before or ever. Will the answer come to me today.

Was the spot on the hill special, maybe only to me. I stood there and tried to forget all. It was time to end this grieving, this sacrifice to the past. I wasn’t some penitent asking for forgiveness and salvation. I turned in a circle at the center of my universe and felt trapped. Trapped by love, not set free. But still I gave in to the tear falling down my cheek. I used my fingertip to lift it up for my blessing, a kiss to the lips. Then I ran my hand across my chest and down my stomach all the way to my groin. Hard again as always. Ready as always. Trained by habit now. I freed the devil that gave me no peace or joy any more to the cold air. And I took it in my hand and slapped it hard. I tore at it and pulled savagely. I don’t want slow and easy. I don’t want gentle pleasure. I have nothing to give any more. I have no one to give to. And in due time I came with no pleasure but pain anointing the place where we had lay. I don’t want this any more. I am so angry that I scream causing birds to take flight around me.

Once you told me. Only once. I love you. But a thousand times in a thousand ways you showed me, I believed. You told me. I was all a man could want. All a man would need. All that was desired. I believed. You knew me and called me beautiful. You touched me and possessed me. I believed. How blind. How deceived. How cheated. Maybe. Because I would never know. I pull up my pants and walk away now, miles to go before I am done.

I take the trail to the river like always. The dogs have gone ahead, they know the routine, for them this is all in a day’s joy. For me it is a punishment now. Some kind of prayer circuit. Walk a mile and lash myself with doubt. Walk a mile and burn myself with guilt. Walk a mile and stab away with accusation. I have known this river all my life. We are poor temporal flashes of color in the life of a river. And a river is a force of nature to be reckoned with. But a river can be dammed. And a river can be destroyed. Likewise the depth and width of a soul cannot be measured. And the love of one heart can be a force as great as creation. And yet a soul can wither. And a heart can break.

There is a narrows in the river between two steep hills, where the water, and time have cut high cliffs of granite. The water turning to rapids. I always stop here and just look down. My stopping always confuses the dogs. How they know I am not following any longer amazes me. But here they come to check on me. I wish you knew I had stopped following you. I wish you would come back to check on me. I wonder if you have secretly. Maybe once. I stopped asking friends about you. I stopped talking to friends about anything. Well a couple of miles still to go and it will be done for today. One day I will take this walk again without your Memory. Yes. One day older and one day older and one day older and one day… maybe wiser. Maybe one day I will kiss another. Maybe one day I will love another. But I will never give all again. That would be impossible now. Because a piece of me is missing now. You took it away when you left. I wonder what you will do with your trophy. I walk another mile and I wonder when I will begin to forget you. I walk the last mile. I am a damn fool. Maybe.