Just as I thought

You would think it would be easy to tell the difference, between the beginning and the end. But sometimes one looks so much like the other. Cowardly sheep masquerading as wolves, like shadows from the past trying to find their source. It’s the smallest things that will become the biggest, if you let them.

I take some comfort in the fact that I tried. Every mountain deserves to be climbed, but there was just no place to go. The surface polished like glass making it impossible to find a hold. My grip on the past as strong as ever, but useless when it comes to what matters.

Not every hole needs to be filled. Sometimes emptiness is all there is room for. I can weigh the absence just as easy as the pain. Picking flowers from barren gardens for a bouquet of darkness on an unmarked grave.

There are ladders that lead to infinity, but only if you believe in forever.

Dark places

That box in the back of the closet. It can contain everything I want, until I actually look inside. Like the darkness trapped within every black hole. A long tunnel for random trains to whistle through. I think I understand this detour. The destination little more than a combination of chemicals and circumstance.

The walls I write on used to be thinner, but it really makes no difference. The rush of air through desperate lungs is just as loud. To be close is never near enough. Hands cover my eyes so I can pretend that everything ending will begin again.

Questions pounding like heavy rubber mallets. I paused to let the doorway catch up, but it wasn’t where I wanted to go. Too frightened to be where I really belong. Back inside that closet, I peer inside the box and find it empty.

Glass dreams

I sometimes wonder if these paragraphs aren’t little more than a false landscape for curious strangers to stumble through. There’s really nothing here; nothing left to write about that I haven’t already written about a million different times. The words around my neck have become a noose, and like the stars, I feel ready to fall.

Maybe just one more time, I tell myself, and then never again. But not today, or tonight. Maybe tomorrow or sometime after that. Time always knows it has more of itself tucked away. Infinite chances to tell the world how I really feel, then and now, and maybe always will. As if forever is something anyone could understand.
Broken pieces of a mirror in my pocket, jostling and jingling as I walk. Reflecting the hidden places, where what matters is kept secret. Broken figments of who I always thought I’d be. I think no one knows, but some people do.

Life is a song I once knew that lost its chorus. It still rings in my head, the notes, the melodies, I just can’t recall what words come next. Emotions dripping from my fingertips like melting wax. I could leave this place and never look back, but words are easier than learning to fly.

It is probably just my life changing and being too afraid to sit in the bleachers and watch. Thoughts being kicked from goal to goal and myself there in the stands so obsessed with the outcome, but powerless. Knowing my dreams are made of glass, I open my eyes anyway, and listen to the sound as they shatter to the hardness below.

Thinking back

"My words, they pour
Like children to the playground"
- Blue October

He would talk of the darkness as being evil. As if there were invisible demons controlling the universe once the sun went down. He would hypothesize about the smallest pieces of the smallest things, as if they mattered the most. And maybe to him, they did. Sometimes he had more paranoia than personality.

There's only so much I can remember and then I start to imagine the past differently. Just for the sake of having something to think about when thinking is all that's left. Like those few seconds when I was weightless. When gravity ceased to exist. The first time we really touched he pulled me into his arms. Made me fall so he could catch me. I didn't think about anything at all. Just fell weightlessly into the safety of him and let the change occur.

Altered instantly from a girl who'd never known to a woman who would never forget.

Drifting

Feelings can be like stinging bees. Ripping themselves apart to break free. Colorful balloons in a cloudless sky, flaunting their strings. My fingers closing around what's already gone.

The past continues to tug on the present. I almost believe that it’s better when it hurts like this. Knowing that I can still feel pain. That my heart hasn’t hardened to the point where it will never feel anything again.

I let it all go. Confident I will catch it again.

Wondering why

Maybe because he woke up one morning, older than he ever thought he'd be. Like a poet with a heart of glass, the winds of time too stubborn to let him go back. And there I was, with all the choices that could make it easier to forget.

Empty attics placing ads in their dusty windows for ghosts. Dark cellars tying to hang on to their damp shadows. It’s not so hard to find friends, the difficulty lies in wanting them. The future walks around in its fancy clothes, thinking I care how it’s dressed.

Maybe it’s my fatal flaw, to think everyone must love me. Just because I love them. Feelings like oversized umbrellas, only it’s not raining. Every step forward should equal all the ones taken back. But I know it doesn’t work that way. Potential with no ambition. Straw houses wishing they were made of bricks.

Still looking for some way to prove that all that isn't real now, once was.

Shiny objects

It’s the glimmers in all the broken bits and pieces. That brief sparkle that makes me stop and consider that there once was something whole and complete.

It’s the subtle glances and the shy smiles and the sound of waves crashing against the shoreline. I am an abandoned seashell amongst so much sand. Consuming the sunlight and believing my hunger has been forgiven.

If I close my eyes, I can sometimes see the future. The colors faded as if having been in the light for too long. My map in shreds, but still promising that it can lead me there.

Unlock the door, turn the knob, take that first step. Going in is always easier than coming out. The hours stretch like rubber bands, but never seem to break. The walls only as real as they need to be. The floor close enough to break my fall - if it comes to that.

I can pick a million daisies and ask my question to the petals, but love will still melt like sugar if it’s left out in the rain.

Soon

It’s been awhile, maybe too long. Like going home after being away for many years. Things familiar, yet foreign.

I want to write again, but not about the same old things. Like hanging on to clothes that will never fit again. Give them away. Clean out the closets. Even forever has its limits.

The words inside my head like crowded goldfish in a tank. They might all look the same, but I’ll keep trying until I net the ones I want.

Gone

“You’re never going to learn,” she thought to herself, in between all the voices screaming in her head. So overwhelmed with the option of just giving up. To accepting the facts. That she’s not even close to where she wants to be. Deciding that she must be that easy to forget.

It was nice, for a little while. The lies keeping her warm. A heart pretending to care. Believing in something that was never really true.

But then she blinked and it was gone.

Next time

Days later and I am waiting again. Because waiting is all I can do. A little lamb reasoning with a hungry wolf. Thinking it will actually listen. I knew just how many steps I should take, but still I kept on walking. Crossing lines and killing time that should have been used for another conversation.

I juggle the opportunities like running chainsaws and then wonder why I’m bleeding. A little pain goes along way, like echoes in empty spaces. What I want to say stuck in my head. The stairs go up, but they lead to nothing. Just more bricks in a wall that’s already been built too high.

If I was someone else this might all be different. Say good-night and that would be enough. Morning comes and it’s another day. But I’m still me and it will never be enough.

Closer

I guess I think I’ll find comfort in his answer. And when I don’t I ask again. Hoping for a different reply.

I start with the corners and work my way in, but this puzzle is never complete. Too many pieces that never fit, and not enough that do.

Part of the deterrent is knowing that I can only die once. If I don’t like it, I can’t try again. I keep thinking life might be better without all these walls. But it might also show me just how alone I am.

Believing I have nothing to offer the world that it hasn’t already seen a million times. Lost just the flipside of found. Assembling my future with tape and glue and then watching it all fall down.

Sometimes it feels like fiction. Choosing my words one syllable at a time. Counting backwards so it will seem like I am getting closer.

If only I could ever be close enough.

And then there were five

Counting the days like I usually count my steps. To and from, one mistake to the next. The sun sets the same no matter where I am. And rises the next day like a ghost from an unmarked grave.

It will feel good to say I've been there. Once I've left this place. It seems I'm not as accomplished at being alone as I thought. Conversations with imaginary people help pass the time, but my future remains as uncertain as ever. Hoping there might be someone waiting for me. Knowing I'm probably too lost to be found.

Nevermind

It was a stupid idea. To think that writing about any of this would change a thing.

I'm counting the days.

It's all I can do.

Touch

Crying slowly, like falling raindrops. A muted sigh that might be mine. So much sadness everywhere. I pull a tissue from the box and another grows to take its place. Life is nothing but repetition. People walk in just as easily as out. The red glow of taillights in the darkness. Raindrops on the glass making the most beautiful abstracts. Out of all this ugliness.

Faint words written in yellow chalk across the blackboard. A map, perhaps, to help me find that island. As lost as I have been, it makes me wonder if anything will be different there. It’s the lies that make the moments possible. Truth is little more than a nightlight that keeps us from walking into things.

If I go too far back I won’t exist. And then I’ll never be able to touch anyone.

This time

It’s worse than the emotion itself; having to pretend, sometimes, that none of this is happening. That these feelings aren’t real. Just everyday sensations jacked up on lust and passion. Most likely to settle back down once the excitement has receded. A smoldering pile of ash that will grow cold once our backs are turned.

The blade is dull, but it still manages to cut right through me. A cold wind from the north that refuses to accept winter is over. It’s always just around the corner, a hello or a goodbye. A selfish decision that has become the most beautiful of mistakes.

He asks me what I‘m thinking and I tell him. Like giving a stranger directions, or the time. And then I wait. For the cracks to form and the sky to fall. So certain I’ll lose him in the future. Counting my steps to a door that may never open.

There are many things he chooses to forget, I can only hope this will not be one of them.

Choices

It should be about making the best of everything, not the worst. The earth is made mostly of water for a reason. We can sink or we can swim. Sometimes life feels like floating, but in reality, we’re all sinking. So slowly we don’t notice until it’s almost too late. And then we’re reaching frantically for that hand. Any hand that can pull us to safety.

I always seem to want what’s missing. Thinking I can overcome the darkness if I just keep moving forward. My pain wasted on all these memories from the past. It doesn’t matter anymore, what happened then. Changing the timeline could erase us all.

The sky only falls on little chickens, but I find myself glancing upwards. The worst kind of angel is the one that doesn’t wait for death.

I saved you a seat

I don’t need light to see. What isn’t there. I can pretend in the darkness just as easy. Like empty boxes tied up with pretty ribbons. A door opens and the brightness rushes in; tiny yellow birds freed from their gigantic cages, overwhelmed by their own songs.

I feel it in the music, but it brings little comfort. Like broken glass tempting me to squeeze it. The choice an empty seat I save for a friend who never shows. Just more space to get lost in. Strings untangling, only to tangle again.

Words to write, pictures to draw, skin to touch. Telling my sad stories about what could have been. Searching for treasure that was dug up long ago.

If there must be someone in the darkness, it might as well be me.

Still shivering

Sometimes I understand. That nothing’s important until you feel it slipping away. Life’s elevator broken down between floors. Doing the math always makes me feel so cold. The answers that might fail me. I think the world is small enough to fit in my pocket. But I would never be so presumptuous to try it. Waiting for a suitable moment to force the doors apart. Thinking I’ve stood here shivering long enough.

Sometimes the numbers make sense, but most of the time they just take up space. Like words, or music, or colorful kites pressed to the wind. I’ve always preferred to take the stairs. Telling my stories to bored ghosts and the memories that echo there. Each step another paragraph or reason to turn the page.

Alone again, like empty cupboards. Tripping over my own shadow; feeling the wind before it rains. All my choices stiff with age. To be that little girl at the top of the stairs, peering into the darkness. More curious than afraid of what comes next. A snowball the size of the world in her pocket. Unaware that it has melted.

Winter

So easy to believe that more will make it better. Like creaky steps to an attic or a cellar. Thinking it will be fun to be underground, or high above. Anyplace that can distract me from the pain. Trying to make short stories from all these chapters. Because no one has time for novels anymore.

Time passes and I tell myself it doesn’t matter. The doorway isn’t going anywhere. The knock will come. Like the patience of mortar between bricks. Cold in the winter, hot in the summer, but always strong. Perhaps I’ll be prettier tomorrow anyway. Flaws fading like old photographs. Inside is where it hurts the most, not where it counts.

I’m dressing in layers, but I’m still cold.

Something at last

It has been nearly a month since my last entry . . .

I’m not sure why. There are plenty of thoughts in my head. Words disguised as beautiful songs, but the lyrics refuse to be written. Empty notes like empty shoes by my bed. The soles a scrapbook of all the places I have been. But it feels as if there is nowhere left to walk in them. A little girl on her tiptoes, trying to see over the horizon. But it’s all too far away.

Or maybe it’s simply not knowing where to begin. Taking pictures of the darkness without a flash. Nothing but torn paper and dried up pens. Frantic scribbles in desperate circles, like an author nearing the perfect ending. The lies are what makes love possible. Truth is the slippery slope. Imaginary walls closing in. A fitting prison for the stranger I have become. Pretending I don’t care because it’s just easier for everyone that way. Climbing a narrow staircase to the next floor, but nothing changes. Just more doors and broken windows. The patterns different; the melody the same.

So many bridges I could cross or just as easily burn.