The Keeper of Old Wounds

I waited four years for you, and you never came. Why you didn't come, I don't know. There was a time when I wanted to know everything; now I want to know nothing at all.

Of course, even if you had come, where would I have made room for you? You did well not to come, truly.

I've been holding a wound across my entire chest these four years—old, tender, kept close. Perhaps you thought I would unfold it before you, bare it, ask why you never came, what sin of mine had driven you away. Perhaps the dread of facing such pointless questions after all this time is why you stayed away.

Or maybe it's this: seeing my wound would send you spiraling into a kind of joy, and that's why you've kept your distance...

Maybe. Many things maybe.

Never mind. Let me say what I've come back to say, after all this time.

I waited four years for you, watching your road. This is the final year of my waiting. I will not—I cannot—let four become five.