I was woken up a bit ago by a phone call.

It was one of the places I have finally been able to discern as familiar and not comfortable.

It has been springing upon me lately, in the occasionally successful attempt to catch me off guard - vulnerable to the pleabargaining of my empathy, my good nature.

I cannot escape it's septic clutching of my understanding. I cannot muster up the courage of a reboot. Of draining the same wounds.

I fear it winds around me. I fear that in this anklegrab situation, my only resource is silence and ignorance.

How dare you say now that you love me.

There is no longer the time nor place for such a thing.

We all meander through lives that consist of windows of opportunity.

When you skip a window, there's no going back, and it's closed.

I have said it was a good dream. Maybe it was only meant for that.

You cannot ever be a safety net. You cannot ever unhurt me.

What I have pledged to is both those things. He is a prop for my growing. An anchor rock for my starfish heart.

He is all that is great and good in my days ahead.

How could I forsake that?

No, the moment I agreed contained all moments.

I can trust him to pull me solidly alongside him. I am a greater person in his presence. He lifts and cradles me.

I didn't need someone on my own plane. I needed a way to grow up.

I would apologize for being myself if it was what made you love me, and what made this hurt you.

But what apology can one lay across the truth? Is it my place to apologize.

You love my possibility. The idyllic way you have painted me for yourself. You loved my attention.

But he loves me as what I am, not as the things I could be for him.

And that - THAT - is a crucial realization.

At this impossible 3 am hour, I can nearly touch the abstractions, it's all so clear.

I do not love you. You are no comfort, no step up into the darkness toward which faith in someone propels me.

You won't find or plant in me that irresolve.

I am not yours. Forever.