His heart was broken. He looked outward at the horizon and felt nothing as he dove inward. He just wanted to be understood and accepted while he underwent the transformation he so desperately sought. He had seemed to fail his whole life despite what those who loved him most would suggest. He could never meet the standard he had set for himself, and he could never meet the standard she had set for him.
He had felt horrible pain and she was oblivious to it. In return, he had hurt her not only in the experience of the pain, but in trying to get her to see it. He did not know any other way in his humanity even as he desperately sought a way out of it. It was his burden, one given to him by his childhood and one he simply did not believe he could defeat on his own.
There was nothing but a void where she once stood in the aftermath of the Storm. The hole was deep and wide, and the devastation was enormous. He could not stand the thought of what he had done, and although he tried to reason his actions in his mind as just another step toward his destiny, inside he felt a wave of pain that was taking its toll. He had fucked up yet again, and silently he cursed not only the bastards who had taught him such misery, but also himself for not simply being able to forget it.
He could not explain this to her as she did not have the experience necessary to understand it. He wanted to desperately to be ready for this, but deep inside he know he wasn’t. He could not understand the release of expectations from his time with her. He could not release the experiences that led him to assume some things. He tried hard out of love for her, but ultimately he failed as any child would in an adult endeavor. He just wished she loved him enough to hold out while he moved this mountain. He also felt there was no one who deemed him worthy enough to hold out for.
That, in effect, was his curse. He could not feel worthy of her just as he could feel worthy of anyone in his past. He fought that feeling with a rage that protected him. He could muster up an anger that soothed his feeling of sorrow. He could find great strength in that rage, and it helped him lie to himself long enough to feel worthy of respect, of dignity, of something other than the fucking pain he lived with each and every day of his life. He always returned to the sad insanity that suggested he was a nothing.
This was a truth he lived with, that he was taught from birth. He was never good enough. He would never be good enough. He would fail over and over again because he was not good enough to succeed. He could not ignore the voices and he did not feel strong enough to defeat them without some light, however small, of love to focus on.
He had that light, but to use her words he “could not get out of his own way”. Imagine existing in such a frozen world as he to have found that fire without an idea of what to do with it. Imagine the warmth flowing over his thickened skin and is anticipation of its absence. Imagine the absence and the return to the the cold. Imagine the great desire inside of him to feel so much different and the sinking knowledge of failure time and time again.
He wanted to hold her, to get her to see him and not his fear. He wanted to ask her to warm him while he learned how to warm her back. He wanted the tears he shed on his pillow to be fuel for change. Instead it fed the hole in his Being, and caused him to question each and every second he spent fucking around in this misery. Perhaps, he felt, it was time to simply say “enough”.
This was his existence. He suffered under it as much as he wanted to rise above it. He struggled under the weight of it as much as he wanted to break free from it. It wasn’t fair to her, but he needed her to destroy this prison. She would never know how much, and she would never be able to know how much she meant to him. He could not share that part of him yet, he could only bask in the darkness of his own shortcomings and know he would never feel her warmth again. This was the price he would pay for simply having been born.
This was his not so simple truth. He could not know hers, she would never share that with him. He loved her greatly, and their time together would create a million moments of inspiration for him. She would give birth in him a thousand dreams and a thousand moments of hope. She would also give birth in him one moment of hopelessness. This was not her doing outside of her own abilities. He knew he was responsible for his inability to be more for her right now. He had failed once again.