Lives Between Walls

I saved a damsel once.

A long time ago in a faraway land.

I still have the scars to show for it.

I braved dangerous rivers, and fearsome dragons, lured by the damsel’s beauty.

Like a moth to a flame, even if it killed me.

In her beauty, I saw the promise of true love, meaning, purpose and destiny.

So I scaled up that tower in which she lay asleep.

I climbed up inch by inch, fighting against the battering winds that made my eyes teary – eagerly anticipating my true love’s first kiss.

She was every bit as beautiful as I had imagined. She was the first thing I saw when I entered that cold grey room, like a rose growing from a stone pavement. My iron helmet clattered onto the floor as I hurried to her side, to plant the kiss of life on her dry lips. I watched her eyes open to behold mine for the first time. The first thing she saw was I, the face of her saviour, to be etched into her subconscious for life.

I whisked her away on my white horse, far away from that iron prison that had held her, off to happily ever after.

However, after a few months I began to notice something strange in her behaviour.

It seemed that she had taken that ivory prison with her. And she would keep mentally going back into it, again and again. Even the smallest of disagreements would send her running to her ivory tower, where she would wait for me to come and rescue her. It was only later that I understood that she was subconsciously re-enacting how we had met.

“Honey, are you really not going to say anything?” I would ask her.

“No, I have nothing to say,” she would respond apathetically. Shutting herself in that tower, until I braved the elements and the dragons and fought my way up the tower to save her once again.

I gave my life for her the first time, but I didn’t think I would have to keep doing it.

Suffering for something is only worthwhile if the object of suffering will be attained. But as it is, I feel like I’m stuck in a torturous time loop of a storybook. I am well acquainted with the part where I save you and you fall in love with me, but what about the part where I actually have you? Where our relationship is the prize and not just you?

I’m sorry for whoever did this to you.

The witch that made you believe that love is just about you.

As I speak, she has locked herself in the ivory tower again, and I’m not sure if I want to go save her this time. I have lost my arm in the jaws of a dragon and fractured my leg after losing my footing on the tower. If I keep this up, there will be nothing left of me – I would have sacrificed my entire identity. And to what end?

Because I still won’t have you.

If she considers what we have important, then she must save herself. She has to become her own saviour. Because I’ve realised that a relationship can only exist between two saviours.

As for me, I have nothing left to give but to salvage the remaining pieces of my identity.

You will come and find me if you want me.