One day, when the sky stops falling I will return to myself I will look around, with relief in my bones And allow my muscles to melt I will find the things that I used to enjoy And my time will know no limits The voice in my head will quiet The people we’ve become will cease to exist You will no longer need me And I won’t be so depending We’ll no longer falter to keep each other up When the sky stops falling

And when will we get there With the sky so endless There is so much of it left A false promise of eternal bliss I will follow my own sky And maybe you’ll find yours We’ll find our joy untethered Not a single thing more And when we are happy We’ll be completely separate You’ll cry for me For a fate you never even considered I’ll cry for us But only for what might have been

I am not searching for eternal bliss Only for you to stop dragging me down I can no longer wait for the sky to stop falling I long to be just a distant memory of momentary lust

In the end, This is a happy ending for both of us

“Mamaaaaaa!” The 5 year old girl jumped up in the bed and buried her mother’s face in sweet little kisses. An audible groan came from the 11 year old boy on the small cot at the foot of the bed. Opening her eyes to the sunlight peeking through the curtains, she sat up stretching her arms wide, back arched and ended with wrapping her arms tight around her little girl. She smiled big for the first time in a long time. “What are we doing today mama?” Her daughter asked her as she wriggled out of her arms and bounced on the bed. “Yeah mom, what are we going to do now?” The stark difference in the way her son asked the question made the smile fade from her lips. But only for a moment. She smiled at both of them again and replied, “I’m not sure yet. But who cares right now? We just woke up in paradise!” She leaps off the bed and throws back the thin curtains of the window in their studio apartment overlooking the beach. Running away to a beach town in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with her children was the last thing she ever saw herself having to do in life, but here they were. Elsewhere, far from paradise in an empty house that reeked of stale beer and whiskey, a very disoriented man woke up on the couch with the most painful hammering in his head. It was about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, how the hell did he manage to pass out for this long? He rubbed his face with his rough, calloused hands and flashes of the night before started coming back to him. “I’m leaving you Cal. I can’t do this anymore. I’m taking the kids. There’s a note on the dining table, since you probably won’t remember any of this when you wake up tomorrow.” His wife had threatened him again. He chuckled as he made his way to the kitchen. They were always empty threats. “You know I’ll fucking kill you before you ever try to do that!” He heard himself say to her in his hazy memory. Crap, I probably hit her again. He couldn’t remember but he started planning his apology anyway. Where was she anyway? Probably took the kids out. Let her cool off for a bit. He stopped short when he got to the dining table. On it lay a piece of paper with a handle of whiskey placed on top of it. “You’re free to drink yourself to death now, Cal. The kids and I are gone. You’ll never hurt us again.” Melodramatic bitch. She really did it this time. He was gonna report her missing and his children kidnapped. Then he would have her locked up, if he could stand not killing her first. She can’t get far, he thought as he unscrewed the top off the whiskey bottle and took a nice, long swig. She watched her kids run in and out of the water laughing and splashing in the waves. For the first time in 12 years she felt relaxed. She pictured his glum, cocky face as he read her note as he drank from the bottle of whiskey she left him with not even a second thought about what he was drinking. Only about what he was going to do to her if he ever found her. But he would never find her. No doubt by the end of the evening he would consume the whole bottle. If he lived until the end of the evening. Pentobarbital. Her best friend was a nurse and could have lost her job for nabbing the dangerously large dose. “I would risk losing my job if it meant saving you from getting murdered by your own husband,” she said with tears in her eyes knowing full well that when it was done she’d have to take the kids and flee. “You’re saving my life, Sav, more than you know. I’m going to miss you.” Up to 75% percent of abused women are killed after they get out. After reading it once she repeated it in her head over and over again. As she poured the lethal dose into the bottle of whiskey she said it again. As she drove her kids cross country she continued to say it in her head. Getting out wasn’t enough, not for her. She was not going to become a statistic, nor were her kids. She got up from the sandy beach and ran into the ocean with her children. They were free.

Six years ago I was young, dumb, mostly drunk, and a little bit in love. We were a good looking couple, freshly 21 and a year and a half into dating we just knew we had to live together. I loved him, and I knew it—I wanted everyone to know it. Sometimes I wondered if he was too good to be true, he was just so pretty. He made me laugh, actually he made everyone laugh. He was always the life of the party. He was impulsive and I abandoned all my inhibitions for him. Something that was very unlike me. Also very unlike me, the word soulmate used to make me cringe until I met him. It was his idea to get a place together. But like I said, we were young, dumb, a bit in love, but mostly drunk. One night became an early night for me as I could not see, think, or walk straight anymore. I put myself in a cab and yelled, “I’ll see your gorgeous ass at home baby!” At four o’clock in the morning I felt it. The slight tingle woke me up just barely at first, but then it happened again, this time like electricity powering up my lips. No. Way. I thought. It can’t be, he can’t be. I knew in the fourth grade the first time I had declared out loud that I was in love with Brett Steinem what this tingle meant when I walked in on him kissing Busty Britney in the basement at my birthday party. I was never the same after that. I sat up and tearfully gazed at the empty space next to me in bed. The man I loved never came home. The burning tingle on my lips told me he was kissing someone else. That was six years ago. Today I married a warm, gentle and kind man. He’s a bit more serious, never impulsive. Instead of losing my inhibitions he grounded me. I’m not 21 anymore, it’s what I need. I buried my version of love deep into the back of my heart after the last betrayal. This was the love I needed. Security and trust. I walked down the aisle and disguised my love for him. Lying in bed in our honeymoon suite half asleep and a little bit drunk I feel it. Please, no. Not again. The slight tickle, and then the electrifying tingle. I sit up and tearfully gaze at the space next to me in bed. My husband is snoring lightly next to me. My fingertips move to my lips softly as the tingle I’ve become all too familiar with continues. The word soulmate still makes me cringe, because the man I love is still kissing someone else.