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.