August is a melancholic month, haunted by memories of poisoned love. Romantic beach vacations gone awry. Threats uttered as his fist broke the wall. Terror, humiliation, the death of a relationship that has become my all. The heartbreak of his departure.
Trapped in my fractured reality, I've come to dread the way the sunbeams slant across my wall. They are the bars of my emotional prison. No other time of year do they cut into my apartment so drastically as in August.
His presence hangs in the air like stale cigarette smoke. Everywhere I look there are reminders that it wasn't just a bad dream: his ticket stub from Rome to D.C.; the can of men's shaving cream in the bathroom; a forgotten sock in the corner; the coffee-can-lid-turned-ashtray choked with cigarette butts.
Echoes of his words taunt me daily, sadistic remnants of the past. How long will they be my roommates? How many more sun-triggered flashbacks of despair? How much longer will I walk zombie-like in limbo between the hell of being with him and the ache of being without him?
*Time warp: I'd thought about writing this before but I needed distance to capture the emotions. It was written present-day but it's set in 2008 or 2009.
Beautiful, thank you!
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