Running Mate

Sun kissed my face today, but not as gently as you would have. Nor did it give me the light I needed to see life outside of these shadows I call my home. I wish I could say that I found sufficient warmth in the world around me but since you decided to go, all I feel is cold. I’m living in a perpetual ice bath, where my muscles are slowly recovering but I ache every second. Maybe one day I’ll be ready for my next run and maybe one day you’ll be ready for yours. What are the chances that we’ll be ready together and our steps can fall in sync once again?

Maybe Tomorrow

One day, I’m going to learn to love the pieces of me that weren’t important enough for you to remember. One day, I’ll grow into this shell that I created for myself to protect me from the world. One day, I won’t be this broken.

I sat in the back of a chapel, trying to feel comfort without you.

I felt cold and stiff, like the wood pew supporting my weight. I asked the darkness around me if anything could ever warm me again.

But God said nothing because not even he knew if that was possible.

Comparisons

I never said I missed you.

Until I remembered the scratch in your voice when you whispered in my ear every morning or the way your arms would drape over me, wordlessly convincing me to stay in bed for just a little while longer.

I can still feel the sun warming my back as I pillow against your chest, basking in the breaths and beats that so often played like music in my ears.

His legs never left the bed like yours did, right to the floor, left heavy behind it. And his fingers never danced comfortably across the small of my back.

You were a shadow attached at my feet, a part of me which I could never escape. You were a ghost that only I could see, too afraid of losing the memory of what had died so long ago.

But I never said I missed you, and know that I never will.

The Walls She Built

She made bricks from her past. With each rectangle she stacked around her heart, she slowly began confining herself, hoping if she could never get out, no one could ever get in. The stone that was once stained red from her pain, her regret, and her fear, now fell gray as she sat in the shadows which painted her inside. That same pain, regret, and fear became her very definition. She knew better than to trust words she heard by now. A world filled with words — so many meaningless words — had continuously let her down. She will always sit in the darkness she created for herself, too afraid to hear more words without merit, knowing they can never reach her as long as she stays inside. Those words she feared more than the fear itself. To be lifted up by empty promises, leaving her head the clouds, only to be let down again, that was a fall she couldn’t survive again. So she sat in her corner, head against the bricks, her knees to her chest. Knock if you want to. You’ll be knocking forever.

The Character You Wrote

You wrote yourself like you would write a character but left out what makes you, you. With walls you built using shallow words and only the shallowest of promises. Who you are, I will never know. That person lives in the shadows of the lonely hideaway you constucted inside of yourself. What is life like from the depths of a personal safe room? Letting no one ever in and letting yourself never out? You fool the people with your acting but I can read you like a script. You are written in the lines and in the margins, but nowhere in between. Your blocking carefully planned, only to emphasize words that are almost meaningless without a matching action. And those words, the words you speak that I love to hear, are not yours but my own that you’ve stolen from me and effortlessly let spill from your parted lips. You treat yourself as an empty vessel; you are something to be dramatically altered, dependent on factors of the world outside of you. I wish I could see behind those walls you have built so high within yourself. All I know is the version of you that has the depth of two inches and the hopelessness of a moonless night. The you I know is only a cheap reproduction of the dreams I’ve let you see, time and time again. You are a like a counterfeit bill, genuine to my eyes but like starchy paper to my hands, your value only found in the facade you hide behind. I’m missing the you that has fears and dreams and stories of past victories and feats. The you that can embrace the strength that comes from vulnerability rather than living soley behind thicks walls. I doubt I will see that you, just as you will never see that me.

Let’s Leave

“Let’s leave,” she said when she meant to say “let’s wander.”
Who needs direction when they have each other?
“Let’s run,” she said when she meant to say “let’s live anew.”
Could time really be lost if spent lost together, just the two?
“I love you,” she thought as she first said “let’s leave.”
Will there ever come a time when she can finally take that leap?

Untitled

These words remain untitled,
Unsure of their real label.
Do they tell a story of loss or of love?
Of confusion, no doubt.
So many emotions, yet no words to describe.
The darkness in which I sit, is almost defining.
The quiet rings against my worn eardrums.
Night, which brings solace to others, brings uncertainty to me.
For I am a victim of tomorrow’s antics.
Memories and dreams draw near to each other,
The pair, a frightening combination.
Torment rakes through my night,
Leaving no sane survivor.
The moon pokes at my eyes to keep me awake.
My regrets and potentials poke at my brain.
Is who I am enough?
Mistake after mistake after mistake,
There is a future out there for me with a similar fate.
The question echoes in those ringing ears again.
It stretches and folds onto my gyri.
There is no escaping the poison in the thought.
Is who I am enough?
These words remain untitled,
Afraid of their real label.