mente et toto corde ex animo

The Dark Way Home

Home.

We feel safe there,

We grew together there,

We grew apart there,

We cried there,

We laughed there,

We shared dreams there,

We held each other during all life's storms there,

We lived there,

Their love died here.

Their lives are ground into the dust and grime that nobody else can see.                                                    Their memories hang thick in the air, sucking the life out of our lungs as he tries to breath.            He held her for the first time on that old blue sofa. Now faded to a pale gray from so many years of being owned by his family. Its cushions no longer are firm but sag a little under the weight of time, from the generations of families and kids jumping on them while playing games, or when mom and dad had date night but stayed in to watch their favorite movie.

The walls hold tales long forgotten for if these walls could talk, oh the things they'd say. There's a smudge of makeup on bedroom door from a night long ago. By the door an old pair of sandals she used to wear to the beach, still covered in sand like it was just this afternoon she carelessly tossed them there. He remembers the last time she wore them. She brought him there to tell him she was expecting his child. They stayed up all night on a blanket under the stars talking about the future. It was a beautiful dream they had.

But a dream was all it was, nothing will ever be the same for him anymore. 9 months after their night shared she gave him two beautiful children, but she didnt make it through. Now everything at home reminds him of her. The curtains they got when they wanted to piss off their weird neighbors... The pool out back they used to go swimming in... The little terrace above it wear he proposed on the perfect moonlit night.

She changed his life in a single heartbreaking moment, he never realized it till after. When they would fight... When they would apologize... When they would spend nights just holding each other. If he could go back he would. He loved his girls but he hated the emptiness inside him. it destroyed him.

he was nothing without her, and he knew it.