something is collapsing

This language is invisible but I'll do my best to make my affection visual.

She says, "But it's never enough. No, it's never enough. Something's always broken and I'm left holding the shards. Why can't you see the blood dripping from these fingers? This is real, Love. This is real and this is what you're doing to me."
She flashes her flowing digits then proceeds to press them into my chest and then she begins to cry. Her face is cracking and her fingers, now constructing fists, pound my chest like red, fleshy gavels of blood and bone. Blood is dripping and tears are sliding down. And away.
And this is all out of order.

There is no sequence to the whims and weights of time.

Colors in motion pass us and for one flashing moment time is still and silent. Human bodies dressed in fabrics fancy pass. Vehicles covered with lights and shiny metal (belts and air bags protect the passengers encased inside) pass.

You, with your fists of blood buried, and I, with apologies masked as bandages, are still.

My eyes are planted in her pupils, searching for the monuments of forgiveness but her tears blur the figures and I'm afraid I'm losing her even though she is here before me.
"You and I, Babe. You and I - we compose a tormented axis but we must hold and we must maintain. Ultimately, we have nothing to break for. A separation would mean a collapse and I would crumble and you would falter and this is something you must realize. Without you, I am a disembodied voice searching for a reason to speak - and what shall become of you - without me?"
She speaks silence.
Painful, jagged silence.
"Speak to me, Babe. Speak from the shadows towering in your heart - or is there light inside? Speak to me, Babe - whatever the color."
"I'm sorry, Love. I can't do this anymore. We seem to only secrete misery and I'm drowning. You're drowning. I'm tired of treading water. I'm so fucking tired."
And with those final words she slowly turns and struggles to place left foot, right foot in sequence. She joins the colors passing on the sidewalk and something is collapsing. A building. A cloud. A memory. Me.
Sound resumes and I hear the cars, the click-clack of hard heels on pavement and the people, all these people talking to ghosts on cellular phones.
Where am I?
Where did I come from?
Feeling the cold keys in my pocket...Where did I park my car?
I look around and my eyes absorb the buildings of brick reaching skyward. My eyes soak the grey sky. This is all so overwhelming. And now the blood is on my hands.
She's gone and I am here.
A cold apartment and bed of ice and stone await me somewhere.
And the collapsing has just begun.

mc