What We Keep

by Jennifer Millikin

Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.

If a hero would sacrifice their love to save the world, but a villain would sacrifice the world to save their love, what does that make me?

“You taste sweet. And you smell like something I want to bury myself in.”

Over half of all marriages end in divorce, and the ones that don’t are just two people who’ve settled upon an acceptable level of unhappiness.”

“I love you, baby.” His voice rings with conviction. “With everything I have.” “I know.” I really do know, but I’ve been considering if there may be other times when something is more powerful than love. Addiction.

As someone whose been through spousal addiction, this hit me like a Mac truck.

True loneliness isn’t being alone. It’s being with someone else and still finding yourself alone.

He’s the one who messed up, so why is it I’m sitting here feeling like I’ve done something wrong?

Every day is a tightrope walk, and I’m in a constant state of nausea.

I’m running out of compassion. It’s a slippery slope, I know, because compassion is more important than anything else. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try to find more of it. Tonight, the well has run dry.

There are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice. - F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“You have a yellow dress with blue flowers printed on it. It has sleeves like a T-shirt, but it’s low-cut.” Using the pointer fingers on both hands, I demonstrate a deep ‘v’ going down the front of my chest. “It reaches half-way down your thighs, and you look like an angel when you wear it.” Her eyes widen. “I bought that dress last summer.” My heart beats double time. “You were my first stop.”

Once you separate the action from the person, clinging to hate becomes a more arduous task.”

Alcoholics can present as functioning adults. Contributing members of society.

It’s hard to explain what I feel in this moment. Known. That’s the best word I can think of, and even that falls short. Seen. Loved.

“You’re always going to be mine, Avery. I’m always going to be yours. I don’t need a piece of paper or a ring to tell me that.” He taps two fingers over his heart. “It’s in here.”

Her skin, her taste, her touch, her scent. I want to drown in it.

We can’t control what happens around us, or what other people do, but we make choices. We choose the hurts we cling to, the truths and lies we allow to mold us and shape us.

I walked on pins and needles for months, never knowing if you’d be drunk or sober when you came home. Do you know what that does to a person’s mental state?

Living this is literal Hell. I know from personal experience.

Real love demands we strip ourselves, and bare our souls. It is a vulnerable, messy affair, and nobody escapes unscathed.