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.