Running away from it all...

...from heartbreak.
Watching him gaze at her best friend
With the same adoration in her own eyes
As she reaches out for him in vain

...from apathy.
Living the same old routine
Struggling so hard to feel something
Anything
As the tears refuse to fall

...from abandonment.
Covering her ears against the screams--
Just because they are familiar
Doesn't mean they aren't agonizing
"You can't do anything right"

Barefoot, she pounds the pavement
Vision blurry from crying.
Her legs suddenly give out
And she collapses on the rough gravel

Yet she feels strangely happy
Because even this
Wind stinging her cheeks
Ice freezing her veins
Stones slashing her papery skin
Is still better than where she came from.

Each moment
She constructs hundreds of different realities
Each one better than the last
And all of them better than the truth.

They get to write their name into history
Without ever leaving the safety of the midnight sky

Let it resound
In every city
Every street corner
Every home

Shout from the mountaintops
Until your throat is sore
And your lungs tight
And your knees weak
From the effort

Say the things that need to be said
And the things that need to be heard
Because people will listen.

And that will give you all the power in the world
To twist the heart of every person you meet
To open their minds
To challenge the system
To make a change

Affirm your position or be forsaken
Assert your opinion or be forgotten.

Silence is loud
But make your voice louder.

We spent hours
Whispering secrets to the night sky
Until it muffled the silent echoes
And swallowed our bodies whole

And as he and I lay there
Our faces hugging the dirt
We emptied ourselves of words
Until
Finally
Nothing hurt

I am so sorry. Truly, for everything I've done. It's 1:20am and I may as well be drunk for all the discretion I'm showing, but I need to say it before this fades as my feelings always inevitably do...I just reread some of past conversations, and I finally realized how much I gave up by not fighting hard enough. This entire year, I've managed to force myself not to care.......and honestly, I even managed to find some anger to throw at you, trying to convince myself that some part was your fault.
I was wrong.

And I don't know if it matters to you, and personally I don't even think it should, but I know that this may have been my one greatest regret. I can't make up for the mistakes, but you need to know that I am at least aware now that they were mistakes. That I couldn't see how you made me a better person and actually accepted me in the time when I thought no one could or should. That my blindness cost me something people search forever for.

And I see you now, unsure if you're happier or not. I sincerely hope you are...though it also scares me because that would mean I may have been the one who dragged you down.

I don't even know why I'm writing this, a flurry of passion, maybe, or a flood of shame. Or even jealousy that you already seem to have found closure while I am still awake right now, struggling with the consequences and the guilt.
Perhaps all of the above.

All I know is that these words in my head cannot be wasted, and they must be given to you before I can no longer send them or I no longer mean them, whichever comes first. They are for you to receive as you'd like, and as I finish, I'm beginning to see that this was as much, if not more, for me as it was for you. So I ask for nothing, and I presume nothing. I simply wanted you to know.

And I miss you. Because the tragic irony is, the one person I wish I could talk to about the chaos in my head is still you..

Darling, if this were a contest
Of who could hate themselves most
I’m well into the danger zone
And you’re not even close.