I don't want to write this one about her, because it means I have to let her go.

And 1 year, 21 days, and 6 hours later I still spray her perfume on the neckpillow she bought me.

And 1 year, 21 days, and 6 hours later I still go to bed thinking about all the amazing places I want to travel with her.

And 1 year, 21 days, and 6 hours later I still wish I had an answer that provided a more solid "why".

And 1 year, 21 days, and 6 hours later I still don't want to begin the healing process.

I wrote to get past the difficult obstacles in my life, and when I met her, and told her I liked her, and she offered to travel to meet me, I stopped feeling compelled to write.

I don't even know what to write to find closure. Every other woman I've ever written about, there was a conflict. A macguffin to the breakup. One of us acted in a way that the other simply couldn't stand.

Not her though. We never fought, except playfully. We never argued unless it was absurd. Even in our disagreement, we had so much common ground that we seemed to only disagree on the details.

She cried the first time she tried to break it off with me. She begged me to hate her. I couldn't do that. She hadn't given me anything to hate her for, and although she was certainly capable, she never drew that dagger and used it to cut me.

But 6 hours, 21 days, and 1 year ago, was the last time she ever talked to me. Silent every since.

I hope she's okay. I hope if she's found love since, that he or she treats her better than I did. And I hope she sometimes goes to bed thinking about that trip to New York we never took. I hope she fantasizes, just for a moment about ringing me up, out of the blue and asking if I'm "still game" for that vacation.

And I hope she's okay when I tell her I'm not "still game."

Because I wrote this, and I'll probably write several more.

Because I have to let her go.

Two crumbing fortreses and a razed village.

Sacked, pillaged, ground back into their very foundation.

Little more than five years ago, I broke under beleagured war.

I was nothing more than a simple boy clutching the sands of time in his fist

Hot tears streaming down my face, wailing and bawling at the grains

As they escaped my strongest grasp, my straining grip, and riding the winds to everywhere The devastation of a siege is inevitable, and soul shattering.

And our engagement was no different.

I promised the gods that if I let myself live, I'd dismantle you.

Even as the fires raged, and catapults lobbed conflagration of your contention

The contention that I no longer had claim to this land, my home, our kingdom.

Betrayed by a union I never agreed to.

It was my only thought as the foundation gave way around me,

Bulwark and bastion wall collapsed in on themselves

I could see the pain in your eyes as you launched that payload.

Miles away in the same room, the most calculated strike you had

The only one you needed, calling my bluff, daring me to end myself.

I promised the walls of our castle that if I let myself live, I'd destory you.

Consumed and tortured by your victory I planned your individual torment.

Freefalling into an abyss of loathing, as I planned my climb out

With a ladder made from the bones and viscera of your moribund prosperity.

From the moment you admitted that no fight was over until you'd won it.

I realized the times I promised I would die for you:

I never thought I would die because of you.

It was just supposed to be simple

Carefree, dalliances of intriguing trifles

Like a redletter day an amusement park we built

With only the thrills we wanted

Invitation stamped with dripping red wax.

After a little too much strawberry truffle

And the whiskey we slipped in to our drinks

Buzzed, arm in arm, clumsy embrace

Giggling at the exhibition of ourselves in our playground

Intoxicated on more than the fuzzy Jack

Woozy from the adult jungle gym

Eager, yet pensive about the next thrill.

We both said we didn't want to spend too much time here.

But we flowed from ride to ride to ride smoothly

Bound by our silken diversion,

Blinded with delight, and sampling each new experience

Luxuriating in the delectation of our fervent blindfold

Stacking electric thrills with fervid acceleration.

Delicious Irony that onlookers would deem us in need of authority

But our thrill seeking was very much in my control

Bare soul, locked eyes, brushing noses as the world spun with entranced delirium

And we held still while the stars painted angels halos in the sky.

Somewhere between the free fall of drop tower

And the carnival games that aren't much more than a cheap trick.

We found ourself in the mad house

"I think we could live here together" she purred

I had been thinking the same thing, but it was supposed to be simple.

Not sure if it was the waxy diversion, or the silky jack, or even the drunken control

But I consented, and pressed pleading lips to her audacious mouth.

Then like the scribbles of some psychotic screenwriter of the most vile anime

The script flipped the moment I succumbed.

Like spun sugar under running water, the latticework of our world

Formed chasm, and melted as we stood on either side.

Her: Clutching a carnival prize won with 5 bucks and a couple of well intentioned pitches. With a laconic, yet somehow melancholy smile, at memories we'd just made.

Me: Grasping for truth.

How could we incinerate this attraction so much faster than it took us to build it?

Madmen break the wings of angels to see their humanity

If only for a moment to feel power over the divinity they loathe

"Destroying beauty may bring peace to my own turmoil" they reason

Commiting treason on the nation of promises and lust once erected solid

After all this, there's no god in which to trust.

Currency of apologies fail, and banks of good faith shutter doors

Riots of emotion surge around buildings with white picket fence

Crushing the gardens tended by 2am discussion, and shy smiles.

Demanding satisfaction for the crimes of lunacy, and atrocities against innocence

Diamond tears clink and tinkle on the ground,

Her most valuable currency, but he won't accept payment.

She'll fly again, evenutally, but never with the grace of an eagle.

Happiness will be melancholy and vibrant colors dimmed

Trappings of fear skulking in the darkness around the streetlights of hope

Rampage of riots demanding justice, faded to upheaval, then to tumult, and eventually just a fracas.

With spraypainted reminders of what we once fought for etched on brick wall

"She's still perfect" was the battlecry that we all believed and she couldn't see.

Humans break the wings of angels to see madness.

She'll fly again

Because she's held aloft at her hips by somone who remembers how it felt...

...How it felt to fly once too.

"You're dangerous," she daunted daringly.

Deftly dancing balanced daggers on her own demure digits.

Delighted smile displayed for a delayed split-second.

Drunk on desperacy I dallied in dissecting her authentic intention

Dissappearing, after display of dark dress, and domineering double D's

I drank in the distortion of her demonstration and dialated on the dissonance

Even delving now, through our discussion as I diffuse our dangerous dance

into ideas and denotive designs on digitial device.

Her demons dance in my abdomen, and I deeply breathe to disguise my throbbing tremble.

Upon overdue return, she drew me to the dark void of her design

Rubicund red pursed lips blew adorable kisses from dimpled cheek and dipped hand.

"Into the hole you go" She nudged ever so slightly,

And I dove with ardor.

Deepening, vast, and unbridaled I deemed I had willfully dropped

Dropped into a demonstration of our desire

Delightfully mingling her lust, with my daydreaming

The next Day, I convulsed in her depths.

Begging for disorder and disobedient rendezvous.

She endorced my spasm and wordlessly demanded my dick.

I have given her the dongle to my desire.

and after my first detonation deemed decent to her.

5 minutes later on, my devior demanded replay

And I realized.

I am doomed.

https://theprose.com/post/115842/she-forgot-how-to-talk-once

For the prose.

https://soundcloud.com/douglas-reid-483827393/r4erotica

For my personal reading of the script.

Just having a little fun, it was well recieved within another community.

Let me know what you think.

Fuzzy memories embrace me

Like an old pair of flannel pajama pants that I hate to wear anymore.

But on the days when the chill of fall, and the snap of twigs underfoot

Threaten to break me under the weight of regret

I still grasp, and search for them.

Threadbare, holes in the crotch, and the full left seam ripped out

It disgusts me that I still find comfort in them

But as they slide on over bare knobby knees, and goosepimpled thigh

They calm the caucophony of my mind.

Thoughts of my old love warm me.

Like a cozy cup of cocoa, that bores me with every passing sip.

But on the lonely evenings, in front of a movie in my flannels

As the pangs of lonliness, and dread of another winter spent alone

Puts tension on my shoulders like an overtuned guitar, threatning to shatter the neck

I still shuffle, dim eyed, and teeth chattering

To the stove to warm the kettle,

And even though the milk is sour, and the water flat

I sip between grimaces,

as liquid heat cuts through the chill of my core.

Cogitations of my youth overwhelm me

Like a roaring conflaguration that threatens to lick the heavens

But given that, lately, my deepest thought is a constant stream of what if's

And a dull headhche

Perhaps evaporating my glacial armor to expose the iceburned soul

Can help me shed the weight of my polar shell, and motivate me to find new lands

I love my tundra citadel, cast from failure and regret.

So I ignore that I have built so many fires from these memories

That good firewood is a good months hike there, and back.

So I hike, and build a pyre upon the permafrost

Hoping against all evidence, that this fire, this time,

Will do the trick.

But on a clear, black, cold night. Pinpricks of light dot the inky shroud

I realize I am as broken as the sticks on the ground I intend to set ablaze.

"Why not set myself ablaze?"

I mutter as I strke match, and light the fire.

Shuffle to the stove to put on the hot cocoa

And go searching, again for those horrible flannel pajamas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otfn42u6dAE

I told the most beautiful young woman today about us, well about you really.

No Promises by Cheat Codes gently wafted over the air like baking bread. Pleasant to the senses, but not overwhelming.

"God I hate this song" she snorted. Platinum blonde hair twisted into a single ponytail over her shoulder whipped around derisively as she scuffed at the song swinging her head angrily. "Promise me no promises? It's an oxy-moron". Pouty lips pursed punctuatively. "I mean it's a good song" she shrugged "but the lyrics piss me off."

I was thoughtful for a few seconds. "I had a woman in my life a few years back. I managed to lose her." I pulled out my phone, and flicked up, causing the password screen to come on. "You see, she didn't expect much of me, but she asked me to give 100% all the time, always be honest with her, and never make a promise I couldn't keep. That's why I ultimately lost her, I think." I tapped Instagram on my phone as I talked, and started scrolling through my friends to bring up her profile. "You see, I made 2 promises I couldn't keep, and it cost me our relationship."

"Seems a bit harsh" she screwed up her face and wrinkled her understated nose. "You couldn't keep only 2 promises? High maintenance much?"

I scrolled through her pictures. She had a fantastic one in a black dress from about a month ago. I've seen some fantastic pictures of her, but this one may be the best photo she's ever taken. The dress was form fitting, and showed her abs, but along both hips starting at her belly button and running down to her calves, 2 sheer pieces of fabric run horizontally towards her hips, and then down the front of the dress on the outside. It takes any hot blooded, straight man about 3 seconds to realize, she's not wearing any panties, because there are no straps. I turned the phone around to show the girl the visage of the woman I loved so deeply.

"I think, they are saying that you shouldn't make promises you can't keep. At least that's what I think about every time I hear this song. That's what it means to me."

She processed the picture for a few moments as I held the phone a foot from her nose."Holy shit" She laughed "yeah you fucked up dude. She was into you?" She walked away shaking her head.

I had only told her half the truth. I made promises every day.

I promised her I loved her. I promised her I lusted for her. I promised I would be a better man than her physically and emotionally abusive husband. I promised I would be there for her. I promised that our love life wouldn't be once-a-week-after-watching-sports-center-one-night. I promised her I would only cheer against her Patriots when they were playing my Broncos. I promised I would prop her up. I promised her I would take care of her. I promised I would love her on her worst days, when her Lupus was as painful to her as being dipped in lava. I promised to forgive her for her bad days, and I promised to never have a bad day with her. I promised her I would keep writing erotica about us, for her. I promised her I'd drive to California and swim to her if the cartoons were right and San Andreas Fault ever dumped her in the ocean. I promised her we'd have children. I promised her a mix-tape of all of the songs that make me think about her. I promised to never forget her birthday. And I promised that her short temper didn't bug me. I promised her everything.

And I delivered almost nothing. I loved her, to be true. I lusted for her, certainly. If we had ever bridged the gap, I would have been there for her. I know our sex life would have been better than once a week, and I doubt I would have been able to celebrate her Patriots, but I would have tried. That's about it, though.

I do genuinely believe I broke 2 promises to her, that caused her to throw in the towell though.

You see, I promised I'd leave my wife for her, and I promised I'd never make a promise that I couldn't keep.

At least I'm glad every time I hear the song, I smile the same way I'd smile every day when I got an e-mail from her. And I realize it's because I'm thinking of all the promises I'd make to her, and how she'd reply.

"Don't make promises you can't keep, babe. ~.~"