Amour.

"Let's try our best, babe, with the worst in mind." was how it started. She could have earned a spot in the Guinness World Records for taming the most pessimistic soul alive, yet she simply nodded and said yes. It held. It held, or so it seemed until days later when I found myself grappling with the bricks and sand of the barricade I had painstakingly dismantled. Once again, like a hesitant soldier with a fragile family waiting at home, I played Judas with my own army, retreated. I shattered an angel's heart once more, couldn't not witnessing her tears, a single drop a dagger to my soul. But surprises are rare, I've faced death before. If there was any, it was that a part of me—a part I hesitated to admit—felt a strange relief, knowing it wasn't mine staining the ground. And then, like a phoenix, the angel rose. I had witnessed it on my own, yet still, I wondered how she found the strength to rise, when her tears had mingled with her ashes? She came. She made no attempt to dismantle what I'd rebuilt, a fragile fortress of bricks which lacks cement. instead, she simply sat, patiently waiting "I'll fight the devils and hell with you if that's what is in your way." Perhaps, just perhaps, those were the words my ears had heard many times, but it was my heart's first time that it'd longed to hear. In that moment, my walls crumbled in the best possible way, not in defeat, but in surrender. I found myself falling. In love. With her.