The If Factor

So, I know this boy...
Who is really a man but let's just say boy.

I could never figure out how I feel about him. I know I love him, but the bitterness it's mixed with makes it false. No, the love is not pure the way that I feel it should be. The way that I have taught myself to love does not apply to him. Because I hate him too. Or his decisions, or toxicity, or lack of thereof, or personal self destruction mixed with self gratification mixed with selfishness of his entire being mixed with...

Well, fault.

I hate how he has never thought of anyone else even though I know goodness is inside of him. I despise how I can see the light in him at times but how it's never strong enough to win out over his darkness. I grew up believing that any form of light can snub out all darkness. What do I do with that belief now when I have witnessed how untrue that is for him? I hate his negligence on everything that matters in life and how he doesn't realize how much is at stake. I hate how I only become important to him when he has no one else because they all have already walked away. And I hate the bitterness that I feel. A bitterness I need to surrender.

I tell myself to love. Love those who are hard to love even harder still. Love intentionally. Love recklessly. Love fully. Love initially. Love the flaws. Love the beauty. Love the paint others cover themselves in. Love the humanity within them. Because I have all of these things too. And if I can't love them then how can I love myself?

But he makes it hard.

And I can't save him.

And I don't know what to say anymore so the silence is filled with more silence and more silence until we are buried in it and I can't breathe. Until I feel the gap between my life and his. Between his truth and the real truth.

And I don't understand and I can't fathom why I just can't get it. My entire life I have always known what was at stake, what could fall through, the people that could walk away forever. So I keep them. I make sure that I keep them close and put them before myself and look from their perspective and sit where they have sat. I make sure to try and feel what they have felt. To simply... keep them. Because it could all fall through at any given moment.

So, no, I don't understand where he's coming from or where he is going or even where he will be at eighty years old.

But I learned long ago from a very different boy that I am not a savior. A very different boy whom I let drown to finally save myself. And I have no regret of that whatsoever. I still dream of him. But now he a thing of nightmares.

He lives with the monsters and ceases to exist anywhere but in a realm of the past that I never did have. Because now it's gone. But I take away the knowing that I can't save anyone. Especially from themselves.

The potential, the worth, the consciousness ebbing away before my very eyes. And though I have tried and tried I cannot live with that. Because he embraces darkness and I fill myself with light. And we all know darkness and light cannot live together. Neither one can thrive. Maybe I can pump him full of light. Put it in an IV and allow the needle in his vein to bring him back to a life he has no idea is possible. It can mark the beginning of a very different needle then the ones he is used to. Maybe the light will fill every cell and membrane and he will forget who he is so he can begin again. Maybe it will spill over and then I can forget too.

And if that were to happen, maybe the love would not be tainted.

 But that is a lot of if's...