I'm just gonna publish old stories I've written here... aite??
The world is so scary when observed through a window of tears. Distorted images beckon you, disturbingly recognizable like manipulated photographs. Pieces of your life stretched out, blurred, and pooled together in an alternate universe. You know where you are, you've been here before, but nothing looks familiar.
Maybe that's why I can't find you.
I reach, I call out, I fall… I meet the cold, unforgiving ground that offers no relief, no answers.
Where is my safety net? How can protection slip out of one's grasp so quietly? Subtle, it just silently vanishes while I am otherwise diverted.
It leaves, you leave me nothing but the sullen ground with which I become transfixed, riveted, staring at the soil that will someday become my grave. No redemption, no forgiveness…
You can't be gone, not forever.
Forever is a long time…
It's strange how the presence of the ones you love can change everything. The difference between standing in a vacant parking lot and a field of bright aromatic flowers. Each person you love in your life holds a piece of your heart, they live in that space, keep it functioning.
But then without warning, painfully, viciously one of them leaves. Did you know what you were taking with you when you went away? Does it keep you company wherever you are? I miss that part of myself, I miss what you took from the others, I miss you.
We're not flowers anymore. We all just stand together, grey and sullen in a vacant lot, abandoned by sunlight, snubbed by the living and beautiful, waiting for you. The shadows meet us in your place, dark and cold, smirking while we try to find you through the blackness.
But you still don't come, and we wait alone.
Together, but so alone.
When you feel like you have nothing to lose, it's amazing the risks you will take. I've always been told I'm not careful enough, that my headstrong stubbornness will get me into trouble someday. You used to say that sometimes in your quiet, non-offensive way.
But I'm already in trouble, I've already lost, my balance gone with you, with the sunlight and the flowers. There are replacements for the things you took, each of us left with these self-destructive behaviors that linger and mock us. They chip away at the goodness you brought to our lives, threaten to ruin your legacy.
I don't want that, but I'm so scared, so cold. Can't I just sit by the fire for awhile if I promise not to get burnt, would that be so wrong? Can I hold onto this comforter, this blanket that soaks up my tears and chases away the chill?
I just want to know myself again, to live again… if danger makes you feel truly alive, can it really be so harmful? Or am I the one who’s riding without a helmet now?
If I hang on tight, maybe this time I won't fall.
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