Malleable

29th Mar, 2025

There are some things I can’t do.

Much as I kid myself that I would move the earth for those I love, most often I feel that the things they need most from me are the ones I’m unable to supply. I can set the stage, but I struggle to change my own role. I can’t ever really be someone else.

And it aches. Grand speeches and poems don’t mean shit when you have some fundamental flaw that has a chance to manifest at any time. An ugly wound that drinks up love.

I wonder if they see the patterns coming. It was already in the making, like a car losing traction as the driver overcorrects in one direction, then the next, getting worse each time. I guess we’ve finally spun out and hit the curb. Where we land remains to be seen.

And it’s not the first crash I’ve been through. This has happened with others - even since meeting them. But I suppose it feels more real when it happens right in front of you.

And this is not an excuse. I should have driven safer, acknowledged the storm clouds on the horizon, not gotten myself drunk on hubris and stubbornness and hope.

Absolutely awful thing, hope.

Of course, they have asked me not to be sorry. Not to feel bad. Told me that I have not done anything particularly wrong, that I am not responsible for anything.

But I did get in the car, after all. I did drive into the rain.

We’ll see where the crash takes us. Whether we land upright, with doors and roof and bones intact, ready to try again. Or perhaps in a smoking and crumpled wreck, as usual. Too scared to ever go back to what was.

Some things are not malleable.