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You don’t look at me the way you used to. You used to love me, you used to stroke me, you used to fuck me with your eyes. Now your gaze is shifty, the looks you give me are empty, and when your eyes finally do meet mine, they’re so very cold and so very crude. They’re so very unkind.

Baby, is that the way you’re supposed to look at your Forever?

Do you remember what you promised me? On that very hot day so many years ago on the Fourth of July? Underneath stolen fireworks on a moonless night you took my hands and promised me. You promised me Forever.

Forever and the Day after Forever.

Do you remember that, Baby?

When you promised me the Day after Forever? Because you said Forever wasn’t enough time for us to be together. Now you barely touch me, you won’t hold me, you don’t kiss me. I’ve forgotten your embrace, how it feels when you engulf me in your arms. I have to dig deep, I have to struggle, I have to wrestle with my brain just to remember that raw milk and honey scent that makes up the very essence that is you.

There was a time when our heartbeats were in sync. It was hypnotic, it was intoxicating, it was ethereal. It was this timeless, syncopated modulation that drove us, that compelled us, that ignited the eternal flame that flares so deeply within us.

You said I was the only one. Your one and only. So why is your mouth touching lips that don’t belong to me? Why are your hands caressing hips that aren’t mine? Why are you tasting, why are you fucking, why are you loving Her? When did my Forever stop being enough?

I don’t know what’s going on with you, Baby. Because I love you, because I can’t breathe without you, because I don’t exist without you, I’ve chosen to forgive you. After all, you promised me and I promised you Forever. And not only Forever. The Day after Forever.

It’s unclear to me why your bags are packed at the bottom of the stairs. We can, we will, we have to work this out because there is no other option. We can’t have our Forever if your bags are emptied in someone else’s house. You’re so silly sometimes, Baby.

Those nasty words, those hateful things, those spiteful lines that you spew that are meant to hurt, meant to maim, meant to cut me deep…Guess what, Baby? They don’t bother me. Well, okay, that’s an untruth. It hurts me some but that’s alright. As long as I know I have your Forever, it’s alright.

I’m trying not to hold it against you, but you’re hurting me, Baby. I don’t mind the bruises that you leave on my arms. They’re merely a temporary tattoo on the canvas of my body that is your Forever. I don’t mind the coppery taste that that pools in my mouth when your hand firmly caresses me cheeks. Because that flavor, that tang, that taste that’s become as familiar to me as the texture of my own tongue?

That’s that nectar of our love, Baby.

I’m sorry if you thought it unkind of me to spit our nectar all over your face, coating your skin, sinking in to your clothes. I apologize for running away, for flying up the stairs, for trying to shut our bedroom door in your face. I beg your forgiveness for winning, like I always do, and getting to the baseball bat that we keep under our bed (for protection, you say) before you.

I want to thank you, Baby, for your guidance, for you wisdom, for your tutelage in the Art of the Swing. It’s as effective as you said it would be in a time like this. In a time when I feel I caged, when I feel threatened, when I feel under attack this bat temporarily replaces you and becomes my very best friend. As I swing high my new best friend kisses your temple, compressing bits and pieces of skull, reshaping your beautiful head. I don’t care that it looks different now, Baby. I will still love that misshapen dome of yours, not only Forever, but the Day after Forever.

I don’t understand why you’re suddenly stumbling away from me. Is this not how we show our love for one another? With closed fists and swinging bats and our love nectar all over the goddamn place? I swing low this time to stop you, because at this point you’re just being silly, Baby. You’re not speaking clearly, but I’m sure you will bless me with clemency once you’re in your right mind, once you’re lucid, once you stop trying to run away from our Forever.

Why would run away from your Forever, Baby?

No matter how many times I swing low and swing high and swing in-between, still you inch, still you crawl, still you scuttle away from me. I can’t comprehend, I can’t wrap my brain, I can’t fathom why you want to be anywhere but here with me in our Forever.

So here I am, still swinging, mouth agape, screaming, sweet coppery flecks of the nectar of our love flying into my mouth. Drunk off of our passion, intoxicated by our love, consumed by the very nature that is us I come to realization that today is the last day of our Forever.

I drop the bat because you’re no longer trying to get away from me. You don’t need to say it (or maybe you have said it and I just haven’t been listening properly) but I understand now. This is the end of our Forever. But you promised me the Day after.

So I’ll lay here, down on the floor with you, with your broken arms and your battered face. Tomorrow I’ll join you. But right now, in the very here and now, wrapped, ensconced, entrenched in your arms in our Forever. I will hold you, I will kiss you, I will love you.

Just like this for one more day, on the very last day of our Forever.