#mj'swriting

 The second time our roles reversed. I was a young daughter of a railroad owner and you the farm boy that took care of my horses. I loved the few hours that we got to spend together. My parents hated us interacting for your skin was so much darker than mine. I did not remember our other life; I don’t know if you did. You always acted like you knew more with the way your smile shined when I would all but sprint to the stables to see you, the horse reins already in your hands. I taught you to read and write and the manners needed to live in antebellum society. We lasted till I was seventeen this time. Then my father caught me teaching you to read and sent me to my room. I found your body in the tree the next morning and screamed. I didn’t eat for almost a two weeks. I was married off to someone by the name of Rockafeller; we had no children, and I died three years later. Then I saw you standing there with that stupid smile again, I felt my heart burst with joy for there were no parents here to stop me. I ran to you, arms out wide and ready to be held by you again. We touched and everything went black. 

 The third time was easier: no social classes or skin colour to separate us this time. No, there was a different problem of course, there is always some problem; we were both women. It was not too hard to hide in French culture, though, and there was a war going on that made it harder for people to notice or really care. I remembered everything in this life, the touches of the first one, the smiles of the second. I knew something would go wrong. You insisted on joining the nurses going off to help the soldiers fighting the Germans. I pleaded with you to not go, and you didn’t listen, so I went with you because it physically hurt to be away from you. The war was crazy and the trenches made it worse, pulling the bodies out to help them was horrific to watch. There was a bomb thrown when we both tried to pull someone out. I kissed you before it went off. The white light surrounding us was too bright. You fell to the ground, and of course I rushed to your side. We touched and everything went black.

 For the fourth life we both remembered the past, the pain, and the struggle once we met again. It was easy to hide our love because we were  roommates at boarding school. And we did have to hide, for we were both boys this time. We finally found a term for what we were. Soulmates. Soulmates was explained in one of the history class as a select group of people who have one true match; those who  are destined to spend all of time finding each other, dying, meeting in the afterlife, only never to go on to a better place but instead to repeat a different life here on Earth. This scared me, still does, the thought that we would never be free and live happily. You promised me in whispers that this life would be different, we would move to the mountains where your father had a cottage. We could raise horses and be alone. We never got that far for the other boys picked up on our soft touches and Saturdays spent in our room alone. I still remember the feeling of the rope and the knife as they went at me like a pinata. The worst pain was watching you be beaten down and forced to watch. I don’t know how you died for I passed out after the third stab.

 I saw you standing and waiting for me. You started to come towards me but I backed away this time, stumbling over the vast whiteness of wherever we were. The look on your face almost broke me but I refused to let you touch me. I didn’t want to go back down there. Not if it meant I would only die after finding you for the fifth time. So we were at a stand still. I could hear you cry constantly; I couldn’t look at you for the moment I did I would run to you. I don’t know how long it lasted, but I broke I fell into your arms and felt so much relief. We touched and everything goes black. 

Fate was cruel in the next life, probably a punishment for my refusal to play along in their twisted little games of soulmates. Again we were both male, but we never met. We weren’t roommates, or neighbours, or co workers, or even master and servant. No, we didn’t meet till I was in the hospital waiting for my wife to come out of surgery a few floors above when I stumbled upon your room. I saw your eyes, green, the same colour in every life, I finally realised, and everything came rushing back. I rushed to you and hugged you, squeezing you too tight. My sick wife was long forgotten. When I pulled back smiling I saw them, the large purple spots that covered your skin. I had heard the news about the gay cancer but didn’t care for it didn’t affect me, but of course it would destroy you. We started to cry as I grabbed your hand. There was nothing to be done at this point, you explained  as you kissed my head, you only had a month left tops. That didn’t make me feel any better. A nurse came in then looking for me telling me there was a complication with my wife, and that she was now in a coma. I left you like that to go find her. I would come back every day for the next week to see you and then check on my wife. You both died on the same day. I lasted only two days before I killed myself. Once I reached the white room, I didn’t wait a second before touching you, hoping that fate would be kinder this time if I made us start over again immediately. We touched and everything went black.

 Our sixth life was better. You were a boy again and I was born a male but was a girl. You told me you didn’t care when I confessed this to you in our sophomore year in college after being roommates for almost two years. You asked me out the next day.  We got married after you got out of medical school. Five years and two kids later we got in a car accident. I remember the blood, the pain, seeing your bones sticking out from your right, your hand frozen around mine. The other driver was drunk. You died on impact, you lucky bastard. I died at the hospital during surgery. Our kids went with your sister and her wife. You cried the whole time I told you once we met again. I wanted to comfort you physically, but that would only make it worse because neither one of us would remember then. Once I was done, you stood and leaned in for a kiss. We touched and everything went black. And now we are here.