Rebuild

   Now is the time to rebuild. To put up those walls you so easily brought down with your smile. To begin the arduous task of re-freezing the heart that you melted with your touch. All my defenses are gone, a chill wind blows across the surface of my heart. Where once there was a fortress of stone and ice, then a paradise of colorful flowers, beautiful waterfalls, and mammoth trees, now stands nothing but a bleak and lifeless landscape. Those same trees have withered and now look like mangled fingers reaching out of the rocky, rubble strewn earth towards a sky full of waterless clouds. For no rain falls here, nor sunlight shines, nothing lives in this wasteland, nothing even tries.

   Stone by stone, I build my walls again. I use myself as mortar, my blood, sweat and unshed tears fitting each block into place. The work is hard, but no harder than letting you go. As the wall circles my heart I begin to see you on the other side. A vision of beauty, you walk with me, watch me as I place stone after stone. I can hear your voice, but your mouth never moves.  The voice I am hearing is from the past, moments that cling to my subconscious. The voice gives way to memories that you play out right before my eyes. More than once I have to catch myself before I step over the now knee high wall and back into those memories. The voice begins to subside as the wall reaches my waist. Your skin begins to pale; your eyes lose their beautiful luster and dim. The smile you have kept this whole time begins to slip. At chest height you are a ghost in the ether. I can see through you to the gray world beyond.

   At last I finish my wall. It circles my heart entirely, with the exception of one point. No matter what you have inside the fortress, no matter how high the walls, you must always have a door to come and go.  This is where your memory made its last stand. I could see you again, but more than that, I could smell you, and hear you. If I reached out my hand I could touch you. And I put my lips to yours I would taste your sweet kiss. This was no memory. It is you standing there before me as I build the archway and set in the door. The words come from your mouth as you speak of old times and happy memories. And as I finish and am about to close the door and seal you out once more, the tears come from your eyes as you look at me for the last time.

   I could feel the walls tremble as each tear hit the ground. Flowers spring up as each droplet touched the parched earth, but died just as swiftly. I hold the door firmly in a white knuckled grip, a war raging within me. The armies of my head go charging down my arm to slam the door and shut you out once and for all. The tattered remains of the defenders of my heart are holding firm in my hand, keeping the door steady and open, hoping for a miracle. The thoughts in my head are many, all based on facts, but the feelings from my heart are weathered veterans of this war. They have fought for years to defend my heart, through pain after pain, and though now they are outnumbered, beaten back by the savage blow that was your goodbye, they still stand firm.

   The door wavers to and fro, back and forth. I can feel the anguish deep within. This battle may tear my very self apart if I do not put a stop to it. I look into your eyes, those eyes that captured me so long ago. They are alive again, it is you there before me. The tears have stopped and there is a whisper of a smile on your lips. You open your mouth then.

“I love you.”

   I scream with fury and rage, my heart surrenders to those words and my arm goes numb from the force I use to slam the door. Every part of me is thrown into that door to push it closed on the pain and the ache those words bring. But even as the door touches the archway, closing you away forever, sealing my heart from love, from happiness, from life, your words finally reach the depths of my heart where you love has always resided. The effect is instant. The door and archway slam together and the walls come crashing down once more. All around me is dust and rock as all my hard work to keep you out comes undone. All that remains is the archway and the door. My body, weak from the exertion used to shut the door, now leans against it for support. With what little strength I have left I push away. The door swings open and falls, the archway collapsing around it. I stand staring into the cloud of dust as it settles; looking at place where I last saw you. I wait for you to come to me, to hold me, to say those words again. But as the dust falls to the floor and the air clears, all that remains before me is a flower rising out of the desolate ground in defiance. I am lost, as I watch the clouds part slightly and let down a few rays of light upon this small, fragile thing. This is where it starts.

   I pick up a rock, stand over the flower and thrust down. I grab another rock, and another. It’s time to rebuild. Stone by stone I build the wall again. You are no longer there to watch me on the other side of the wall as it rises higher and higher. There is no more ghostly image, no haunting voice, no painful memories, only the flower, safe inside the wall, as I seal us in once more.