Somber Solace.

To Verona:

It was strange to hear your voice today. Somewhat somber, somewhat different. You came in with that same line, same mode of arbitrary information. Words just to hear your own, words to drown mine out.

Repeating the same line over and over again. A seamless sequence of non-sequential thought patterns.

and then you stopped.

Silence.

Every battle you've always chosen to fight alone. Paths I would have willingly… desperately crossed with you were not to be ventured. Paths I would inevitably cross because of your unwillingness to share.

Nevertheless, your return was always my solace. War-ridden but victorious, this was you… and in effect so was I. The strength, the will to proceed as if nothing penetrated that impenetrable exterior… into your precious veneer… was my strength…. and is still mine in many ways.

I've never heard you beg before. I only maybe ever seen you broken once. But that once was enough to shatter me profoundly.

And yet today.... something was very foreign, very different. I now realize that you've lost. Lost a million times, in a million different ways, that I will never fully comprehend… because you have chosen to carry the entirety of this burden alone.

And yet as it broke, as you broke… all I could do was hold you, and say that I'm sorry.

All I could do was give into this, into you. Give you all of myself in the ways I had always wished you would, but was too proud to ask.

As we broke away, back into the sequence of non-sequential thought patterns, all I could think was… how did we get here?

How is it, that no matter how hard I try to shake you we are inseparable? so similar that if I were ever to take one false step, I could be here.

I could be you.

All I could do was hold tighter. cling to that moment.

To you.

To us….. harder than I've ever held on to anything in my life.

Because for all my loss, all of my heartache you were the only one I've always come back to. The only solace to ever console me, as I to you.