War of the Gods

“How can I move on when I’m still in love with you?”

The Script song croons into my ear, feeding into my already plentiful geyser of self-sympathy.

Spewing the tears that angrily fight the faltering demon of self-righteousness as I close my eyes…

Sinking,

Falling.

Collapsing.

Into the nightly abyss of warring emotion and logic.

Into the battle of reality and ideals

Of religion and of love

Of identity and self-determination.

Of me and myself.

A little girl, with clear images of her prince, pieced together like a grade school collage project of snippets of movies, memories of childhood stories, cuts of half-remembered dreams, lines of sappy songs, fragments of ideas laughed about in long summer days with best friends who came and went.

A grown up girl, set in her identity, sure of her love and longing for her home in the “land of milk and honey” suddenly swooped away by another love. One so real. So tangible. Kissable. Lickable. Spicy.  

One that brings the girl from tears to laughter in seconds. 

A god in form of a boy.

Awoken from idyllic day dreams to a reality of fantasy-like happiness, she can’t let go. Months of joy paid for by months of sacrifice. Months where the pain of longing don’t disappear, don’t dissipate, don’t evaporate.

“ B-b-but…” the little voice nags. “But of your dreams?  But of your home far away? But of the imagined man reciting prayers at Shabbat meals? But of the children raised inside the folds of a beautiful, scarred history?

No amount of pleading, of tears, of wracking sobs, of sleepless nights, of exchanged “forever and evers” drown out the voice.