I read the lifeless messages she addressed to me.

 

Reminders of the wasted years. Wasted gain.

 

Her sunlight was that of another world.

 

A world I craved to explore, to get lost in.

 

A world in which I did not belong.

 

There was much I did not understand, but her light was warm.

 

I came to discern my capability of falling anew.

 

She dispelled a fear that festered soon after my divorce long ago.

 

The dread of not seeing myself in the eyes of another.

 

A Balkan woman, with eyes of blue, held my reflection in captivity.

 

And she did so in the cruelest of ways.

 

-RS