Do you remember? Do you remember what it felt like, loving me? Because as I recall, I loved you too, once upon a time. Once upon a time, we loved each other.
I read your letters now. Half a decade has gone by since the moment of no return, the moment when we turned our backs on one another. It was ultimate and tragic and more than sincere. I read your letters.
I hurt you; you hurt me. Back and forth, one then the other. Did it ever really end? Because even now, as I read your letters and hear your voice in my head, I know the pain anew. I feel the ache of your abandonment and the stab of my own culpability; I rediscover that guilt with an odd sense of ownership, of pride. Like a spider, dangling inches above the fiery pits of hell, so I played with your adolescent vulnerabilities. Jonathan Edwards knew what I was doing to you, even then. He was a dangerous man, all the more frightening because of his stance behind the pulpit, leering out at his audience, beckoning them to disagree, to tempt him with their mortal doubt. In that sense, he and I were one in the same, each consumed with self-righteous indignation, obsessed with the implications of our sins.
You were my spider, and yet two played the game. You say you opened yourself to me, but you were ultimately afraid of losing your torturer. The fear consumed you, tugging at your insecurities; it consumed us. I couldn’t smell it then, but my olfactory senses are stronger now. I know the particular stench of fear if only because it has haunted my gut for 24 long years.
You were my spider, but who dangled whom? The thread that connected us, well, it connects us still. But where did the fire pit end and the briar patch begin? My fingertips held the silk, yes, but there was a distinctive pull, a soft tug tug, tugging away from my clinging grasp. Yes, yes, I remember it now. I still feel the silk slipping through my small hands, so fragile with uncertainty and false vibrato. I gasp, stunned by the sudden emptiness, but it is too late. And so I seize another’s seductive twine and the cycle continues. Meanwhile, the fire burns below.
Thus, the question emerges: Was I the goddess of your universe, tempting you with damnation? Or was my heart ultimately holding you back from the flames you so desired?
Do you remember? Because I cannot. I will not.
“My sweetest downfall”… so it says in a song.
I think of you.
“The Bible didn’t mention us…not even once.”
Edwards would be disappointed, I’m sure.
“I loved you first…I loved you first.”
So sings the sweet chords of her softly smirking lips.
“Beneathe the sheets of paper lies my truth…”
