Bared Souls

Alma Weber

He told me that he’d destroy me.

            I knew he wasn’t lying, and I loved him anyway. 

            I believed in love—in him.

I just wasn’t prepared to carry the weight of his demons.

I wanted forever with him, but life showed me love was temporary, and forever was a dream.

            Despite everything that happened, even now, I wouldn’t change any of it.

            For a love to have the capacity to destroy you, it has to be extraordinarily powerful—and that kind of love is impossible to walk away from.

            Leo Harding

            I warned her that I’d ruin her. I knew that I’d taint her innocence with my bad intentions.

            I was weak.     

She was perfection.

            I was nothing.

            The truth is that I loved her, and I selfishly wanted to hold on—to her, to the man she had made me, to the life we could have.

            I wanted to dance with her in the light despite knowing that the darkness would find me anyway.

            Heartbreak was inevitable.

            Yet I held on to the sliver of hope that I was wrong, that love really was enough.

            Destiny isn’t something I buy into, but she makes me want to believe.