If you listen carefully enough you can hear her voice break as her words smash off the rocks of her insecurities.

"Quoting Tennyson?"
She asked.
The After-Thought.
The first time she had ever spoken to me
Other than the imaginary conversations we had all put aside in a file titled HER in the back of my mind.
I knew I loved her when my eyes caught hers, a first glance, like one of those slow motion hallway scenes in an 80s movie. That was it.
So here it is.
This is the story of a girl who broke my heart.

A year from now,
I would have
climbed the Tower,
walked on the Wall,
sat on the Bridge,
survived the Desert,
passed the Canyon,
crossed the River,
sailed the Ocean,
stared at the Stars,
seen the Aurora,
read the Book,
tasted the Wine,
celebrated the Day.
That my friend,
is a Year well lived.
A Year From Now.

I'm living enclosed inside a place nobody knows about where a part of my soul grows in the dark and it blossoms in the cold.
Being the only soul here, it gets lonely; nobody to hold me, but if only I was more like the old me and had more of an open heart policy.
This space allows me to hide my true face; pushing away out of this place others who get too close. I have come to just embrace it.
There's a certain limit I have when it comes to outsiders being in it trying to find and get inside of my mind to get closer, unaware they're not going to win it.
It's been a minute since I've allowed it; I'm not proud of it but I can't do anything about it.
So many have tried to get me to confide in them about my spirit that's died; I thought I was hiding it but never knew it was this visible on the outside.
I wear my heart on my sleeve but my soul's in a pocket; deep inside, I zip that ***** up and locked it, threw away the key so no one can come in no matter how much they're knocking.
The only thing accompanying me is a mirror that I allow to be this near for a reason clear enough to understand if you were here.
I punched it watching the cracks spread wildly, but the fact is that simultaneously the reason for that is so it can stay here with me.
Now I'm not as lonely, have no reason to pretend or fake a feeling and even have someone to understand what I'm dealing with when I look at the falling shards of my reflections, then pick my head up to see that I finally have someone here I can see who's as broken as me.

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

I'm always the odd one
Everyone enjoying the fun
I'm alone with my mind lost,
I'm gonna always be the last
Everyone has that one friend
Who they can fully depend
But I'm just a **** loner
Trying to get closer
But as I grew older
I gave up and said this is over.