You suppose that she loved you once, for a brief period around Spring. You suppose you loved her back as well, but love never seems to be enough.

You used to watch her talk, across a restaurant table or curled into your shoulder or next to you in bed. It was endlessy fascinating, the way syllables could wrap around her lips and she turned language into music. Her breathe against your skin lit fires that could never touch. Persephone with her long blonde hair, Persephone with her soft padded footsteps. You suppose that it must have been love because you remember everything. Every freckle, every eyelash. Every ridiculous thing that should mean nothing but somehow means everything. Persephone ripping up bits of grass while you spoke. Persephone's eyes when she cries. If adoration had been miles, you would have spanned the world. If love had been enough, she would have stayed.

You told her to leave. You smashed all the dishes and unscrewed the bed frame and told her to leave for good. You nearly pushed her out of the door, hands gripped white to the frame and love is not a selfless thing, you suppose. It is callous, it is greedy. Love is not standing stoic on the shore while her boat grows smaller, it is swallowing the entire ocean for one more kiss. So you told her to leave and held her tight to your chest. She made the everything turn in on itself, grabbed life by the tail and skinned it. She was art in blood stains. She was everything beautiful in all of your broken metaphors.

Your heart was made of a thousand tiny hands and it reached, continuously. You suppose it sucked the life right out of her. There are no flowers in hell, love is not enough. A creeping thing, her depression, a slow burning oil lamp that dwindled from white to yellow and no one really noticed, except for you, because it was your job to notice such things. Because you loved her. Persephone with paint on her fingertips. Persephone tying her shoelace. The decline to madness is paved with smooth stones, it was easy for her to just fade away. There are no seeds allowed in Winter, no angels allowed in hell. She fell asleep on the hardwood one night and told you that she couldn't leave if she tried.

"Being with me is killing you."

"Then I guess I'll die."

She made a mess of her wrists and you might have actually screamed, running, carrying her light little body to the car. It was a Sunday morning that she woke up with unfocused eyes and you told her the hospital bed was made of clover and she smiled and asked you to tell her again. So you did because you loved her and she loved you back. Persephone with bare feet, Persephone's back in the sunlight. Flames always die and love is not enough to will them back because believe me, you tried.

Love is not enough, because if it was, she'd still be here. Love is not enough, because if it was, you would have made her leave a long time ago.

Labels: Cynicalbones, Love, Reality, Relationships, Separation