My nervous heart clenched into a tight fist. I knew going in, but oh, to be there, to see, to hear – there is no preparation. I could belong to this creature, I could lay down everything I am, (again), how terrifying, intimidating, how one hundred percent expected. And so, it clenched, it tightened, it stung and palpitated and, always faithful and willing, fled my chest to glow in my hands with lost promises, fingers of memories that were reaching out, forward and back, (too late), to take his in hello. He was an uncompromising hit of oxygen. The heart is created of four chambers, two on the right receive depleted blood and push it to the lungs, two on the left receive rich blood and push it to the body. Mine, to keep from being damaged, attacked, stolen, (too late), or injured, had crippled itself, had preventively rearranged the compartments. I had not forgotten even minutia, but had shifted in self defense, as one may shift weight to protect their balance in a fight. A quiet decision, made of dread, the transfer of a holy name, (a physical structure, a treasured arrangement of cells, laughter, hope), from the left to the right, like the hand he used to wear my ring. my eyes could not help but glance for it, knowing it was gone. And so it survived, infrangible, not destroyed, but starved, withheld of his presence. Sadly, achingly, denied.
Splitting from, sacrificing, those desires was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. It went against the sum of my precepts and every temptation, but not, unfortunately, necessity. I am charmed to see him again, if decidedly overwhelmed. (My powerful mess of deprived love is a dose only matched with remorse.) Thankfully, restraint is complex, and family still counts as public through one way glass.