The Real Him

The Real Him

Everything is falling,
crumbling,
down around him.

His perfect life,
now so miserable and
cold.

Everything is dark.
Blackness fills his eyes,
keeping everything that is right,
out of view,
out of sight.

To her,
he is gone,
lost in the darkness.

What started as a game,
as a fun ride,
has become a hellish never ending circle,
a way of life.

When looking at him,
she is reminded of the boy she fell in love with,
the one who loved her for her,
not for what she was.

But this boy was not him,
this boy was a completely different person,
same name or not.

The real him could make all her troubles
melt away
with the simple act of saying
her name.

Anyone could say her name
over and over,
but when he said it,
oh,
when he said it,
her heart stopped,
she went weak in the knees.

Just sitting here with him
she is reminded of all the memories,
all the laughs,
all the tears,
simply with one look,
one glance.

He looks at her,
and for a split second the world stops.
She is short of breath,
and everything else disappears.

All she can see is him,
the one who makes everything better,
the one who she
fell
in
love
with.

But then,
as eye contact is broken,
he fades, runs back to the darkness,
and is re-substituted with this
new boy.

She starts to say something,
anything,
to bring him back-
but stops.
She knows nothing is strong enough
to withdraw him from that feeling
of bliss where he dwells;
not even
love
itself.

He stiffens.
He knows something is wrong,
but does not say anything,
does not mention
one word,
too afraid of facing what just might be
the truth.

She can’t take it any longer,
she explodes,
and everything goes blurry.
Not able to stop herself,
all her feelings and thoughts are spilled out of her,
into the empty space separating the two.

When all space is taken by her endless words of remorse,
she stops and looks into his eyes,
pleading with hers that she’ll find him again.

He looks away, hurt, avoiding her eyes,
and looks back with tears in his.
Then he says two little words that make everything
well again.
“I’m sorry…”

He is back,
she can see in his eyes,
and can feel it in her heart,
the real him is finally
back.

And even though he has
overused those two words,
it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter that they were
meaningless to him just
one minute ago,
because he wasn’t this new boy anymore,
but the one she loved,
the real him.