What are you supposed to do when the quintessential moments of your life are already known?
How are you supposed to take another step forward today when you know, a few years down the line, you’ll be doomed to walk behind the love of your life until he turns around and condemns you to never live again?
You are doomed to live a life that is forever repeated.
You are doomed to fall in love.
You, like everyone, are doomed to die.
You, though, are doomed to be given a second chance at life.
But you, doomed, always doomed, aren’t going to make it back.
Walking in time with him, always just a little bit too far behind to bring any comfort, you are always doomed to hope that he won’t turn around, that this time, he’ll keep going, that he won’t be overcome with doubt and concern, and most importantly, love.
You are doomed to know he loves you, to know that his love is what doomed you. His love for you, so strong that he couldn’t bear the thought of you not being behind him that he cursed you to never be able to see him again.
Would you rather be loved or alive?
He turns around, he always does because there is not a version of him that doesn’t. You know this. There isn’t a version of you that doesn’t.
He doesn’t know, or he does and he doesn’t think, too overcome with fear. He will live a life of tragedy, but he will get to live a little longer.
You, you do not get to live, you get to be loved.
You are always loved, and always dead. Every time he looks back at you and you and he share your last gaze, you are loved. To be taken away, to no longer have hope for escaping your fate, is the same no matter how many times you are taken, you are dead.
There is no countable number of lives you can live, love, and be taken from before the pain stops. Just because you have loved him 10 times, doesn’t make the 11th not hurt.
To live an infinite number of lives in love, and each one cut short, doesn’t satisfy the time you didn’t have before, like a sinkhole, the pain only grows larger.
You are doomed to let out your last breath somewhere in-between living and dead.
You are doomed to ache for a life where you were loved a little less because then you might finally make it out of this story alive.
You are doomed to die, every time. Because you know nothing in this story ever changes, you never live to see how it ends and you never get a happy ending.
You are doomed to hope that this time, Orpheus with all of the effort he has put in to get you this far, will keep walking.
You are doomed to see every one of his footfalls, to watch as he becomes increasingly more afraid that you are not with him after all.
You are doomed to never stop him from looking back. You never get to have an impact, you can’t change the outcome, always right behind but always doubted.
You are doomed to always have your fate rest in the hands of the man who’d rather see you now than never again.
When he turns around, you have a few seconds to assure him that it’s okay, that you’d have done the same, that he is loved even though he has failed.
When you die the second time, it will always be worst than the first time, because this time you know he isn’t coming back to get you.
You are doomed to be loved. You are doomed because you are loved.
Always; over and over again.