PREEMPTED

The reign of March is ending. Thirty of its days, been and gone.

One only left that doesn’t yet belong to it: tomorrow.

But it’s too late.

The rain of March, is also heading for the exit.

Sunny skies coming up, or so they say.

It hardly matters now. Too late.

During the rain and wind and storm, you changed. Or, rather, changed back.

From “you” to “him”.

To who you’d been before we met.

Maybe it was too wishful on my part.

To think that you could be reborn in spring.

I guess I was in too much of a hurry to congratulate myself on my midwifery.

“I ain’t who you think”, you used to joke all through winter. “I am a prince, held prisoner by an evil witch”.

So, alright, then, from prince to prisoner, what difference does it make? You changed.

And it so happened I bore witness. I saw you give away your kingdom, watched you slow-dance into oblivion, and exile.  

And that is when I knew: too late, always already.

- The reign of March was ending. You had been gone for longer than a day, nearly two, and I was only too aware of the next thing in order, the promise I had made myself: just turn around and walk away.

Instead, I stayed and I waited, watching the rain of March hours before its final curtain call.

And, then, I went scouring the windy city for a glimpse of you.

Though, by the time I found you, you had no eyes for me.

On the train platform, across the tracks, tightly wrapped inside your waking dream, barely upright, with your back against the wall, you were dancing a slow waltz with gravity.

It was pulling at you, pressing down on your shoulders until you had to brace your hands against your knees.

Then, gravity ever so gently felled you, overcoming what trifling resistance you put up, until, to your evident surprise, you were squatting, back still against the wall, though not for long, because, then, you tilted sideways, one arm blindly feeling for support, and slid in slow motion, eyes closed and mouth half-open, to where you lay down, crumpled, on the platform like a bag emptied of its contents; emptied of the person whom I knew and had agonized over.

I saw you there, like this, a prince turned prisoner, eclipsed, all but invisible to the commuters on that platform, hidden from public sight by the absence you had invited in.

I did turn, then, and walked away and up to the train station’s exit where, sighing, the rain stood watch.

-Only, it didn’t feel like I was leaving; more like being sent away into the day’s drizzly remains.

Wearily trudging, having lost to too formidable a rival!

I’d been a fool, to think I could compete against the evil witch that had reclaimed you.

And that the shelter I had to offer could stay the storm. Well.

Winter had been and gone and the first month of spring as well, or very nearly.

And, on the verge of rebirth, you’d again let the sweet poison back into your veins.

You had made your choice, clearly, and in the process, robbed me of mine.

Keeping my promise to myself and leaving you, was now a moot point.

You bastard, you’d preempted me.

So, better keep on walking, pelted by rain, eyes fixed ahead, for fear of being pulled back down the railway stairs, to that amniotic darkness where you nestled.

You cannot save anyone who doesn’t care to be saved, who’s not prepared to fight for it. Repeat.

Can’t rescue people from themselves. Repeat and keep on walking.

And waddle through your pool of tears, only a few hours now left, before the cruelest month is ushered in, the lively April, about to be crowned king.

- Shoots springing up and budding trees, animals mating and sunny skies, or so they say.

 No hope of stemming this tide of things determined to be born and grow and thrive.

This blind imperative to live!

Is that what scared you so, I wondered, and caused you to retreat and flee?

Right on the threshold of new life, across the tracks from me, to rush back into the safety of existing by default, untouchable, empty and yet somehow replete?

Is Spring to blame?

Or is it me?

Turning my face up to the sky, swallowing rain, ruefully I repeat the question.

“So, then, is this on me?”

Am I too earnest, gullible, too easily persuaded by lies dear to my heart?

Am I the blind one, the one fearful to live without another’s destiny as my banner?

Too scared to show up empty-handed when life’s about to explode all around me, am I the one defenseless in the face of April’s cruelty?

The rain drives down harder in reply, harder still, leaving me all but blinded.

March, although it is about to expire, briefly pauses as if considering my plight.

And then, in Morse code, the raindrops, now needle-sharp, spell out a message on my skin.

It’s untranslatable, of course, to anyone but me.

But roughly, very roughly, speaking, it might go something like this:

“As well you know, you are guilty on all charges: Overly earnest, gullible and frightened to stand alone... And, so, only too eager to be singled out by another as being of special worth. To be their chosen one, their savior, if need be. Bind them to you with gratitude, if nothing else. But, mortal child, none of these trespasses actually draws a sentence.

Not out of leniency. You know by now I’m gruff and blustery, and have no taste for mollycoddling. No. Rather, it’s because, a point always comes when you must exchange certainty for truth. The contract to live is never signed off once and for all. Why do you think the months keep on recycling? You will most certainly be asked the same question, many times over. In that sense, your sentence is the same as everyone’s; it’s life itself.”  

Or, another, equally plausible, translation might be:

 “You know you’ve closed the door on something when you no longer come across it further down the path.”

Or, yet:

 “The only measure of how far you’ve traveled, is the road that you yourself have covered.”

Thus spoke March on the last minute of the last day of its incarnation.

So, then, did mending the promise I had broken, mean I would again make it at some point but, this time, keep it? And be released as a result, freed altogether from the need for promises? I was singularly uncertain on how to process that information.

All I knew with certainty for now was that March had left me soaked, covered with its liquid ideograms, in equal measure awed and puzzled, bereft and grateful…

And that it was time for me to brace myself for the onslaught of April.