Saying Goodbye to Antony

It's interesting how the focus has been on him for so long. How he came to you, how he won you, how he was changed by you, how he felt when you left. Not left: abandoned. I'm quoting. You kissed him awake and he listened to you leave. And that's all that gets talked about, and while that's certainly a good story, a classic, one for the poets, it's not entirely fair, is it.

Like take how they never talk about how he came to you; it's like he just was suddenly there. Like he arrived from nowhere. Like it's not possible that you wanted him to come to you, called him: none of it was your idea. This ties in to the "conquering" idea which has always vexed you; that and the "winning" -- you are not some prize, dammit.

And it's always like he arrived with nothing but his pain and his past with which to barter. You had your own pain, a point nobody likes to consider. The truth is: you both had things that you needed so badly you'd decided you'd never get them. You both were well-covered in tarnish to hide the imperfections: his dented pride, your gouged heart. And because you both knew the truth about yourselves, it was easy to see the truth about each other. They make like you healed him and you like to think that's true but you didn't walk away empty-handed by a long shot. Spit and cloth and ashes from letters you burned long ago, and he handed your heart back to you; not repaired because it can't be fixed, but no longer something you had to close your fist around to hide.

Or they talk about him hearing you go. One presumes there were stairs to be descended. He listened to the music of your footsteps as you left. Well: what was he supposed to do? He's not stupid after all, and sobbing after you is the one thing that would have sent you off sooner. Without wishing to discount how hard it might have been to stand there, clenching a jaw muscle or two, being stoic, it is a lot harder to go downstairs knowing you're doing the right thing but also still having your eyes full of tears. And you couldn't look back because then he would have seen you cry; it cuts both ways and it's not like it was easy.

It's hard to let go completely, and probably you never will: It feels like letting go would mean denying it meant anything, and it did, it did, it did. The goal is to be honest about it, not encapsulate it in a caricature, and yet button it down somewhere so it doesn't look at you all the time with its what if? eyes. What if you had stayed? What if staying had been what was meant to be, instead of leaving?

We talk about the past like we knew where it was headed just because we know where it ended. We say something wasn't meant to be, because that's how it isn't, now. If you had stayed with him, he would not have stayed in love with you. He was prepared for you to leave because whatever he said, he wanted you to go. Anyway, that's what you tell yourself.