So, you can’t keep it. The obstacles— insurmountable. You would think from how much we try to hold on so tight, keep it alive, go back to the start.
It is not our fault, Love, but Life’s.
Everything that used to mean most, the first nervous smiles, the seemingly insignificant walk down the gum ridden, littered concrete; you remember the glow of the street lights. The one last look in any reflective surface, to make sure that one hair that always falls to the left, is right. You came to love my hair most in the mornings, disheveled and tangled. You came to love my wounded heart that I tried to shield for as long as my eyes and quivering chin were seen in the sunlight that first time. Now, your hand cups my face, graze past my eyes, just to make sure.
I told you about the words, the words that scarred me most and the words that saved me. How a piece of blank paper was the only thing I controlled. So I became the architect. I molded words I never felt effective, prior to you. Alarming and terrible was life outside that perfect dream. You held me and said “I will always hold you this tight. Always.” And so, I held. We held, significantly so, for longer than we could actually bear. Day by day we just were waiting in a queue. The next ones to fall. The last ones to let go.
And when we fell, we collapsed, separating right down the middle. It was silent. The fault lines, finally crumbling inward and landing all melded together—in the end, we didn’t fit perfectly. The leftover pieces just arranged sporadically throughout the few that held on. Isolated, attempting to fit… just somewhere. The skin off my back held on to the wall as I slid down, my own body neglecting these hollow bones. Down, sinking.
The parts of myself I’ve lost, between us. The depth of this weight, of the bitterness, but mostly guilt. Harboring its serrated edges and rusty lines. Grabbing, open palmed and tight. The wound now gaping, unclothed and flowing freely. And they’ll wonder how they couldn’t have seen it before. Or maybe they did, but it was easier to always just walk away.
It is easier— walk away.
To love you, was to love a hallow barge. So vast and empty. The iron, warm and impressive from the outside. Always with a heaviness, though. And with a steady struggle this little vessel strains to cart your weight, but then just to be ridiculed.
I came to despise the smell of the mixing salt that encircled us always. The wearing silence I tried to erase with tightly weaved legs and feet, the warmth I always thought meant something.
The inches I took for miles, the tediousness of dissecting the words and looks that had no meaning, or longing. Sometimes, it really is just a look. It’s okay, green eyes, that you never were beautiful.
Down-turned and sodden, desolate. It was you who made the light disappear. I’ll take heart in knowing, your heart, holds nothing of mine. Your mind will remain feeble, but will hold the flashes you’ll never be able to erase. I’ll be that picture real clicking on an empty doorway. Eyelashes, collar bone, and the softness of my skin in your decaying hands. A laugh, brightness echoes through your cold hallways.
You’ll never elude it; enveloping you most in the early mornings. Falling asleep and waking bound by these thoughts.
I will keep my upturned glances into you, through you, and your hands holding me down. The recycled personas, and the tender touch that was only learned, never, truly, felt.
So how long, how much longer, will I have to wind myself up once the sun rises? Until the pulling and straining out of this pit of tar, becomes just too much. Its dark and boiling, I’m trying. My eyes unoccupied and this dark film is coating them, almost completely. I look for ways out, I still reach for; you. Shaking and burning the exhaustion flows through my fingers. A part of me, welcomes the impending quiet. But, this isn’t peace, and I plant my sinking feet into the collapsing foundations and simply, pull.
With an anxious breath. With open eyes. With undoubtable potential.
I will escape this.
But first, one last stroke of weakness. Falling back in to you, I ran. Into your arms, and your eyes still empty. Expressionless while every inch of me burns with fervor. I pour myself into everything I try to memorize. This, I know, the last time. My face on your chest, my fingers holding on to the green cotton like a life-line, the shallowness of our breathing, the cool breeze and the hot sun on my bare shoulders. It was, a beautiful day.
The muscles contracting making it hard to smile, physically hurting while my lips turn upwards. I feel down your face like I’m sightless, I feel like I might crumble as we kiss.
On the blue horizon I penned every truth and stuck them in your pocket, addressed to you.
You’re walking away, stepping over the cracks in the concrete. There’s nothing I hear other than just one heart beat. With a deep breath, my lungs bruised, I am still.
Still.
“I’m well aware that we are not stars in some black and white film, that I will not sit on a train with my open palm pressed against glass waiting for yours to match it. I will not look back as I move further and further away from you, shrinking into the distance; and you will not run after me when I make my final exit. When this scene ends, no one will applaud.” — Stephanie Georgopulos
“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou”
Watching their faces lit beautifully on the screen, their eyes bright only somedays, though. His face shows the scars she’s left. Her face shows nothing, to him, to them. But in her seat, in the dark she knows. She feels every ache. Every indecisive look, touch— really feels. Their stories intertwine for less time than her own. She sees though every tiny detail of two people going through life. Drawing the buildings they’ll climb up, jump off, take in. If words could really tell anything it’s that only time, without seeing her blue dress, his black pants. The sunset. Shielding everything, and you’ll recover. You will. You’ll still feel him. Feel Us. Feel his hand on yours and wish for more of the past summer’s…
Love, waiting.
He’s fiddling with a ring, on the 557 train. Moving it through his own fingers, back in the dark blue box, out again in the sunlight. He’s smiling. She’ll wait for him as he gets off, in the rain, her blonde hair is darker and her dark eyes show deeper. Gold flecks bounce off his own iris as they kiss. The thundering of the train leaving their tracks, to a new season, they’ll hope. Please, please, please they sing on the way back to her home— his hope, as they watch the clouds. The tall grass penetrates her spine and makes her shiver without any breeze. They sit in silence, feet tapping, hearts pumping and his glass drops. Seeing the reflection off the water, he’s suddenly hopeless. Demanding answers, she shuts down, looks away, wishes him away. Regrets all the best moments, all their most beautiful days; the nights. It’s now him alone on the bench made for two, her behind the oak tree longing to be there. As she approaches feelings rush over and she collapses within him. Falls asleep in his hands. Tomorrow will be another obstacle within the trouble and chaos raining over her uneven footsteps. With or without you, she’ll survive.
The girl, with sadness colored amber, dilated in the brightest sunlight she’s searching upward. Her hand outstretched in flame, her face cracking from the ice that hardens her once delicate features. In the reflection of this shell she sees, green, blue, brown. And from deeper, trying with all her frail body, she barely feels a single tear. Any less than thousands she believes to be an understatement because her mind stopped counting, heart still ticking, 2…7…8 and when the page turns a drop of her frozen sea lands and ruins it. Running down, around, stop at ‘melody’ and with a heavy sigh the page is counted as a loss with sentences smeared and more drops falling, freezing. The ivory paper melds with her finger tips and she wishes she was this page. Its purpose, it’s story, so much more. So much more beautiful than the fault lines in porcelain, raspberry lips. So many, so many less than his disappointed eyes. It’s like he doesn’t even see the dismantled ice. Every part thawed means double the drifting jagged rocks fitting like a puzzle piece forcibly shoved into its present position. A simple question, simple words, roll off her tongue with the uneasiness of his palpitating heartbeat she’s counting to. She decides to jump in, now flushing, and her jumbled words are barely audible. She regrets this moment more than the last. She is buried by the tone of serenity in his sentences, his clear cut down. Looking out the mirror she regrets this reflection. Escaping deeper within the bitter tundra today, she thinks maybe she remembers them all smiling looking out at the vastness of the little place in this huge world and her little hands still reached for the sky. She is disgraced by those little hands. Wanting that huge world between her tiny fingertips instead of holding on to everything she had, then. Whole chapters of laughter, the pounding inclination of life expanding on her canvas. Woven with blistered fingers, the print manipulated until just perfectly pliable. She painted in the brightest blues. Now she just holds on to her favorite page, her most beloved paragraphs smeared now… She knew they were getting brittle but she wishes for just once more over. With her eyes, her hands, memorizing all of it, all she has left. Drifting… Her mornings yearn for you now. Her life is getting deeply encompassed by the swirl of jet streams and tiny plane windows she won’t look out of ever again. the waters weighing her down and that smile isn’t as half-hearted as she thought it would be. because the ripples in her ceramic casing are breaking. he smoothes the surface leaving just skin. he’s brushing sand off her bronzed shoulders with a lightness she’s never known before. It’s like the sun in early morning and he says it’s up to you, to do the rest, to save us. what if she can’t? what if she can’t feel anything, anymore? he tells her she’s everything. she feels more on these pages, than that bird flying could ever, because hes searching for her today, tomorrow, and finally when he sees her, she’ll know. he’ll know. you’ll be rid of all this, but first, you have to… just learn to walk again, learn to breathe, empty that fatal water to me. You mean this city. You mean the absolute most to me.
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She doesn’t remember the last time someone really asked ‘how are you’ it’s always rushed, half-meant, or as she’s walking into the front door and being greeted by a relieved, longing, smile. Their little girl, is crumbling. Her smile— brighter than ever though, deceiving. The lies have become so tangled and twisted she wonders if she can believe them too. Some days she does. But, night has a way of creeping up on you. When it’s only her shallow breathing and heavy heart beat, she hears every truth.
She hears the voices of the ones she wishes she could reach out to. She sees her empty room, cluttered. Her clock blinking, waiting to be reset. She’s been putting that off, too. Under three blankets still trembling, tears frozen on her cheeks, pillow, and making their way to her ear. She has this weight, constant, reliable… always. She doesn’t know how to be rid of her thoughts, of this place pulling her in deeper. Accepting it was the first mistake, if she can try to go back that far and remember. That day where she just sighed, deep, filling her lungs and— release. Conceding to what was gnawing between her ribs. That is when she gave in.
He doesn’t understand her anymore. He’s looked passed the way her eyes used to look in the sun, he only sees through the dimly saturated windows. Her porcelain skin is covered, shadowed, sallow. The softness remains so he doesn’t take notice. She’s glad of this. Reaching out to touch his heartbeat she wishes it would take her away with its rhythm. Within its pattern she wants to live, concealed. Her home holds the broken fragments of her shell, still looking up between the branches, through the shimmering green reflected on to the sky. Cloudless, she still pictures the night crouched on the wet cement just feeling the rain. Unceasingly, rain. The chills behind her neck, trailing down the bruises on her back, it used to heal her. Afraid and going out looking for highway signs, red arrows, to guide her, turn her down this straightaway. She’s always been too cautious to take that one step up, over, finally.
So, she treads on. Moves forward while running in place. She’ll miss his dark eyes; her heart will remain in his hands for as long as he keeps it. He’ll unclench his fist one day, she dreads, but knows, and secretly hopes. She’ll still feel the drop. Feel the shattered pieces being strewn on the floor where he will walk on, move on. Rewind. She’ll regret feeling those late nights. Evergreen eyes. She’ll never understand how one person could change her outlook on, life. She’ll always talk about the night where you showed up at her door. Unannounced. Her glassy eyes saw you and melted as you ran and embraced her so strongly. You kept her standing. You saved me with those arms. One whole heart is so overflowing, overwhelmingly inebriated, twisted. The story book ending is at the end of the books she doesn’t read anymore, doesn’t believe in anymore. She doesn’t know how to escape.
‘How are you?’ she says, blue eyes incoherent. ‘I’m fine’ looking up at the trees. Zipping her jacket up, her boots crushing the autumn leaves. Each step loud, reaching out. She turns.
Her hair is braided to one side, amber streaks poking through from the sun, tendrils in her eyes, always. One step with every beat. One step is all she needs. The ocean air still calls her. She locks it away in a music box that used to play ‘my little sunshine.’ it fits perfectly. She will carry you on her back until your very last step, and she doesn’t regret this. Her disfigurements will eventually be seen, but until then she’ll say she is just as strong as she was four years ago. Her little hands will long to feel the open air, and she will someday. If not, though, she’ll smile and know that her heart was, most definitely, always full. Her eyes genuine and those little lines she’ll come to love.
She’ll see the world through clicking film reels, painted pictures, words overflowing.
The bitter cold, the silence, is welcomed tonight. Holds herself tight in the blankets that smell of you. This whole room is painted with us. This chapter has hurt more than the rest. She has been exiled exclusively but will break through again. The chill she thought to be unbearable has numbed her now.
At this moment, rooted, right here.
