I visit my shadows frequently, dipping in and out, through curiosity and in fear, I see myself, drowning in the darkness and I grasp for the lightest parts that I know exist to pull myself out.

It's a wondrous feeling, the ability to walk along the edge, to know what it means to live in both worlds and pretend you have the option to choose in any moment which side the coin is going to land on.

Who am I today? And how long will this last? What triggers the change or am I the trigger, My mind the gun?

Firing off thoughts so rapidly, the shield of my logic has no chance of standing in the way of my reactions. I am blinded by the flash of the sudden explosion and temporarily stunned.

Being the person that tries to "keep it all together" is a cause for major shrapnel when it all blows apart.

I thrived on beginnings,
Once upon a time... the fairytale romances.
The secrets that lie within the whispers of the woods.

Lost endings, the souls left behind.

We forged worlds beyond words,
within the boundaries of our minds.
We built walls to protect us,
against the odds of invasion by any force.
Any force other than ourselves that is...

I went from a lover to a liar in a heartbeat;
the flip of a switch as soon as I heard I could get what I'd been craving.

The jolt of electricity through your bloodstream, the feeling of being alive with your senses on fire, the ability to seem untouchable: superhero like even...

Almost nothing compares in that moment, but in the afterglow, when your cape begins to lose its wind and your heart starts to slow, nothing feels worse than pondering it's destined finale.

Discovering your conscience, all the while knowing that no matter how much you love someone, the poison always comes first.

It's a terrible reality, the ability to choose.

And I always choose wrong, down the path of the chemical adventure, knowing that at the end, I always inevitably fall off the cliff.

But it's an obsession: being on top of the world, and no matter how much time passes, or how far I think I've come, she always wins.

It's the slow onset, the clarity, the peaks where everything seems far better than it actually is, but now the dream is over.

I need to let it go or it will consume me; living in a false reality, locked in to my need for perfection.

She used to calm me and make me godlike, but now I've fallen from my pedestal and upon looking up, I see she turns me into the monster I've never wanted to be...

Hiding, in shame, from the soul I love the most. I wish I could tell her, divulge all of my secrets, but the fear of the disappointment on her face is too much for me to bare.

Because I know she could help me,
if I would just tell her the truth.

She is the reason the earth is shaken,
The sudden change in course that caused the ground to break beneath me.

As I began to plummet, I gave no thought to what would happen next, I reveled in air against my face and the blur of the world around me.

A few simple paragraphs turned into endless conversation, and before I noticed I was reeling with every word she said.

Awestruck.

She knew me without trying
A reflection of all the deepest parts of me
The pieces I would hide
The little white lies
Turned into a whitewashed version of myself.
The fear that muted me.

But not this time...

The words overflowed from me, as my soul erupted into a stream of consciousness to which I was formerly unaware.

A pause, for just a moment, a breath, to take it all in.

Waiting for the signal that it was all just a dream.

Instead, a realization that she genuinely embraced even  the rawest essence of my being.

And for the first time in my life, since I discovered what it was to love, I felt like there really was a big picture.

That this sharp incline filled with unending obstacles was simply preparing me for the peak of my own personal Everest.

Such great heights, it was unimaginable, so I didn't see the signs as she approached, or perhaps it was meant to be a whirlwind of wonder.

The payoff for the twisted path.

To have something of such magnitude be acquired so effortlessly, all it took was time, I just needed to stop watching the clock.

Because miracles don't happen when you expect them, but instead, they occur once all hope is lost.

She is my miracle, my game changer, the one that turns it all around.

Better yet, my inspiration, to take control of the wheel and continue driving even in the most perilous of storms.  

For I know innately, with her at my side, anything is achievable, and therefore fear is insubstantial.