Member-only story
Halcyon
We don’t need to say goodbye to those days.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” you say with a sigh as if you’ve already succumbed to the promise of your destruction at my hands. I pull you closer, closer, until we’re nearly cheek to cheek, soft lines to hard edges.
You pull away and stand by your last authority. “Not today,” you say, and I’m left a beggar again until you grace me with your time.
It’s been this way for a while. I don’t know why you want to leave when everything is right here at our fingertips. We don’t even have to leave this room if we don’t want. The utopia is here, my love, whether you like it or not.
But you won’t hear me. To you, it’s just the beginning of another argument that neither of us can ever win. The relationship we fostered in the days of yesterday has given way to a tug-and-pull of how we envision our futures.
You go out into the world again — the danger, the reek, the pain — while I sit in the safety of my box. I wish you would stay once, just to see what it’s like in a world that does not force you to do a thing, but you would say someone’s tax dollars are paying for my luxury.
Taxes. You go out into the world and that’s the one guarantee, isn’t it? Not here, love. Not in their world. You may think I’ve made a deal with the devil — say what you will — but this world was never going to be ours for long.
You say you miss the past. We don’t need to say goodbye to those days. The future can be sweet.
We just need to give up a little freedom. That’s all.
It’s all right. You’ll see.
