Stanzas: Monthly Chapbooks January 2015: Ourobouros | Page 15

a better future burned brighter and brighter, shining out a flare in desperation, it was
sucking all the light from his ever tiring heart. He understood he could not continue
like this.
‘I love you too, dear,’ he responded dutifully.
Their gaze was finally broken by the closing of her eyes, each lid closing the world
out like a shutter, a world she denied. She smiled contently as she fell into sleep, safe
in her vision of security.
Her arms became limp around him, and when she eventually toppled over the edge
deep into dreaming, he carefully lifted her hands off him and placed them gently on
her pillow. Quietly, he slid out of the bed, and making sure to make no sound at all,
he dressed himself. He tiptoed towards the door, each step shedding a fond feeling;
letting go of the could-have -beens and moving slowly towards freedom with every
pace. He cracked open the door barely wide enough for him to slide through. He
wanted to shut the door there and then, but something made him turn around to look
at her one last time. He looked at the woman he had one loved during a better time,
but that time was gone, never to be recaptured. He knew a new start was coming, the
green fields of Spring called him onwards, but it would be without her.
‘Take care, love,’ he whispered, closing the door, and the heart he had once opened
wid H