What do I do with all this love I have for you?
Nokyoung Xayasane

You’re standing in front of an open window, billowing curtains. The winter sun shining in and you turned to me, your back against the light. Stained glass window. Your back against the light. Reds and oranges and yellows and blues and greens, playing across the curtains and your face.

That evening, early morning actually, I awoke and found the indentation of your body in the bed beside me. For a moment I felt fear, a pinprick straight to the heart.

I found you standing beside the window again, the darkness before the rising sun, a dim world encased in the quiet pre-dawn sky. I was relieved to see you standing there, still there. I stood beside you and you turned to me.

“You can’t stop thinking about her.”

“I wish I could, but I can’t.” 

We’re no longer hiding from each other, we’re beyond that. I’m relieved to see you still here; I thought maybe the worst had happened—that you had done the worst to yourself. I can’t help myself and reach out for your hand to make sure you’re still there, alive and breathing, short tortured breaths like a wounded animal.

“You love her.”

“I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

You have so many wishes right now. Wishing you didn’t, wishing you could. A world of wishes. I’m still riding the wave of relief to see you safely beside me, my pain at the fringes of it, the foam of pain on this wave of relief, keeping me afloat.

“You want to be with her.”

“Yes,” you say simply. No more wishes—just a statement of fact. 

“What do I do with all this love I have for you?” I ask you.

“I’m sorry,” you say. The dark sky behind you. Your back against the darkness.

“You should leave before she wakes up.” Our daughter asleep in the other room. “If you don’t do it now, you’ll never do it.”

“I’m sorry,” you say again.

I see you now, walking away from the window, away from the house, down the road to our car, the headlights streak across the road. The headlights turn, casting beams of long light and then you’re gone. 

What do I do with all this love I have for you? I write these words to you across space and time, making my way back to you. I love you. Nothing and no one has changed that. 

You in technicolour, the white of the curtains, and moving shapes of colour across your face.