Braveheart

I sat at that intersection this afternoon watching the freight train pass, feeling the sting of the sun on my fresh tattoo, and the slow tingle of sweat dripping down my neck. What have you done? I ask myself accusingly. Watching those boxcars pass I think about what they've meant to me in the past, contrasted so starkly with how they make me feel today. It's hard to believe I'm the same person I was back then, and of course I'm not exactly, only fundamentally. What have you done? I ask myself again, dissatisfied by my lack of an answer. 'I was honest' seems to be the best I can do, and it's only the partial truth. The truth is that what I did was pour my heart out onto your desk in one big fat sloppy mess, and now I'm so nervous about how you'll respond that I can't even think straight. I try to assure myself I said nothing I didn't mean and I certainly have no regrets, but once the truth has come out there's no going back. The truth is that you're all I think about these days, and you're everything I want. The truth is that I fall for you a little more each day despite my efforts to abstain. You told me once the heart doesn't give a shit and so has it turned out to be. As the last train car passes I reflect briefly on the phases of my life which have each passed by, like so many cars on a train. The sweat drips into my eyes and makes it look like I've been crying. But really there are no tears here today, no tears for me. My heart feels an unfamiliar joy in knowing your affection. I feel lighter for sharing with you mine. It feels good to know that you will walk by my side into this next phase of my life, for what is life if not the journey, and as surely as I know that I am not what I was yesterday, so do I know that I am not what I'll be tomorrow. I finish the drive home with a sense that whatever the outcome I've done the right thing in coming clean. When I ask myself one last time, what have you done? My heart answers simply and sincere, 'i was brave'.