The Broken Years.

I dare say I still reach for you through the empty spaces, just to see if you will answer. Of course, you never do. I don't know who to blame for that; or if blame is necessary.

I hardly trust myself to think on those days - irrelevant as they are - for fear that I will somehow alter the details. Dulling or skipping or smudging some small moment that meant something to me then. I don't want to lose it altogether, but the possibility of remembering it wrong seems a greater tragedy.

It isn't you anymore, though. I feel I should tell you this, so you know I'm not entirely lost. No. Not you, but rather, the comfort you brought. The illusion of safety I felt in your arms. The ease by which we existed together. 

It's difficult for me to find that here. By now, I'm nearly a full-time cynic, with little time to count my blessings, trust there's love, or hope for peace. Maybe 19 is too old to still hold on to magic - an age to stop waiting for that miracle, and instead, face the discordant song of reality: "You are alone; the strongest arms let go."

S.

{Photo: Flickr Kelley Smith}

Chess.

I think we may have reached a stalemate; stuck in this place of indecision, anticipating our demise. I was never any good at games, and you were never any good at playing fair.

I want to talk it out. Even just to know why you chose these steps. I want to see the patterns of your mind and understand your motives. If I could have that, I believe, I'd give up everything. Full surrender.

Instead we have this - this tension and this silence. And this feeling that, no matter how we play the end, we both lose somehow. 

(Your move.) 

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

I think I might know --

The snow is building up around me these days in a way that would be alarming in another world. A world I lived in a few short months ago, where snow came only as special occasion, accompanied with some degree of awe.

Now, I stand unamazed and unfazed by this phenomenon. Getting buried under the inevitable without raising an eyebrow. Settling into a new commonplace, rather than embracing it with previous childlike wonderment. 

And I feel like this may be some sort of metaphor, for my life currently - and I have some ideas towards its meaning - but I can't be bothered to work out the details.

I only know I've come to forgive you for everything you couldn't possibly apologize for; and that my anger has subsided into a dull 
hollowness that echoes slightly 
when I stand too near the edge.

No, I don't think you should be worried, yet.

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Flat Lining.

There are worse things than being in love with the wrong one.

(I just haven't felt them yet.)

S.

{Photo: Flickr Mary Robinson}

Rules.

You must not ever stop being whimsical.
And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.

by Mary Oliver

{Photo via: We Heart It} 

On Things That Last -- Nothing.

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf's a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

{Photo: Flickr Dewberry}

What I've Become.

Please let me go as unscarred as possible.

I do want to see you. I do. With everything I'm made of, but I know that would damage me. Deeply. So I'm left to choose the weaker path, of running. Of hiding my weary, dirt-streaked, bruise-stained body behind lies of dead cell phone batteries and strict nightly curfews; I choose to never face you again.

And I like to tell myself I'm brave anyways. At least I'm escaping, I say. But it's no good. I know what a coward I am, and I despise my weaknesses.

I know if I saw you, one last time, just the two of us, it would all appear. A mess of confessions and confusions and anger and pain, and a horror worse still: desire.

So I will hide away until I can leave this place for always. This time I won't turn around; I won't stare back at you as drops race each other across the pane, wondering on what ifs; I will not ready myself for some glorious return. Because I know now that there will never be one. I won't think on your life, at all, any longer. I'm really leaving. 

I just have to make it out alive.

S.

{Photo via: We Heart It}