“To see evil and call it good, mocks God. Worse, it makes goodness meaningless.”—King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table
King
I have no idea what to say to her, what to say to that, so I let her fall asleep across my chest, and I ponder, I wait, I wonder, I wish.
That’s maybe what I do the most.
I wish for more, for things I’m not allowed to have. I wish for deep kisses strong embraces. I wish for soft words, scorned ones even, to set me back in place. And I wish for safety for her, for me.
And if I’m being completely honest.
I wish for more.
So much fucking more.
Because for the first time in my entire life—I wish for a kid, for someone to pass this down to, to tell stories to. A piece of me to continue on the way I’m continuing this bloody legacy for my dad.
To hold in my arms hard and close—to tell him or her or whoever they want to be that it’s okay, they can be it, and that I’ll protect them until my dying day.
But wishes. Wishes are for people who don’t see the world the way I do. The world is a dark and dangerous place. Hell, I’d be lucky to even have a wish to wish on, let alone have one come true.
I breathe in and out, and I come back from that place of want and accept my reality. The reality of knowing that this woman in my arms sleeping peacefully after calling out her desires won’t really ever be mine.
She’ll be his.
I’ll protect her from afar; he’ll hold her close. That’s my reality, that’s my world, and quite honestly, at the end of the day, it’s her happiness that matters most, not mine. Maybe I wasn’t born out of this cloth. Maybe I was meant to be the type of man who just simply protects his own and deals with the pain because that’s what it feels like right now.
I got both the short and long straw. I found my person, but I’ll forever watch her be kept by someone else.
It’s okay, I tell myself.
It’s going to be fine.
It has to be. Otherwise, how does a person survive this sort of torture and pain?
Her hair is falling against her cheek, I brush it away, and then I smell my fingertips, wishing she was there to greet me with her lips. Maybe I sound like a crazy person, but if this is crazy, what the hell would I do with being sane?
After a tiny moan in her sleep, she’s completely out, and I’m watching her eyelids flutter. She’s dreaming, and I wish the small smile on her face was for me, but it’s probably for him. I have to accept that now as I tuck her hair behind her ear again and start to sing.
I used to hate getting made fun of for liking music, for singing, but now it seems right, it seems just that at least when she’s dreaming, I can sing her a lullaby and make her feel at peace.
“Skies are always dark at night, but in the morning, there’s always light. Follow me, slip away, I’ll try to keep you in the day, follow me, slip away, there’s nothing more I want than for you to stay. Stay. Stay. Always… stay.”
I remember my mom singing this to my dad when he was sad and singing it to me when I cried at night.
Maybe, just maybe, singing it to her will bring her peace.
And selfishly, maybe it will bring me just one moment where I have her all to myself.
Seven. Days.
Now six.
Life isn’t fair.
And the devil is a liar.