becoming self aware

   All this time spent at home, only one constant has remained. This unsettling feeling never left me. Like I was locked in a cage. At first I figured, cabin fever. No big deal. Completely normal. But with every passing day I’d be filtering through my thoughts, hesitant, and unsure why. Finally I had to ask myself, “what am I so afraid to see?”
   The days where I’d feel most unwilling to stay in are the days I tried to dig in the hardest. To really open my eyes. As I looked back over my life I realized there’s never been a time when I wasn’t running. That I was truly disturbed by sitting in place. How can that be?
   When I stared at my reflection I saw that I wasn’t looking in a mirror, but a window, and outside was unfamiliar scenery.
   I wasn’t locked in a cage. I’d been running so fiercely away from my problems that I’d started to trek upwards, and had somehow reached the top of the steep mountain that is denial and avoidance, and made a home here.
   All this time spent giving my all to other people, to materialistic things, to arbitrary experiences, where had it gotten me?
   From the peak you’d expect to look down and see something breathtaking: a city skyline, the beauty of nature around you, something. My view was empty.
   Through the clouds I could see other people atop their successes, surrounded by the dreams they turned into reality, and something else hit me. What is my dream?
   I’ve spent so long neglecting myself that I haven’t made any plans. I’ve had no idea where I was going. I’ve just been running from one distraction to the next, acting off pure adrenaline and blind instinct for so long I’d abandoned the trails and left all of my supplies behind.
   Then the most gut-wrenching realization of them all: I’d have to backtrack all the way down and start over. No progress made, only time wasted.
   The journey down is so much scarier than going up. All this time unbeknownst to me, my demons had actually been hiding behind the trees, lurking, rather than getting lost in them. The thought of staying in place, in the comfort of what was easy had occurred to me, but they’d have caught up eventually. So to avoid the avalanche of letting them find and devour me, I decided it’s time to take control and face them. The only hope I have is that by the time I get to the bottom, I’ll have been able to figure out where to go from there. And that at least when I get there, the only way to go is up.

I begin to feel at ease watching the golden stream fill the glass sitting in front of me. When it’s empty I’ll crawl into bed hoping to avoid another dream of you. For the moment your smile is no longer stained into my memory. The taste of your kiss burned away by the sting of the whiskey. I slept better with you next to me, but until I forget how that felt, the bottle will have to do.

Through the passing of time I found a way to make the darkness behind his eyes shine like the morning sun
You’d think it would be a relief to feel the warmth of them
How strange that what is supposed to be cathartic, isn't

Steady voice and an enticing smile, his requests used to be passionate, innocent
Suddenly those eyes that used to start a fire in me grow cold and I am going with them
My fingers race across the keys to try and find the words before the fantasy fades and reality confronts me

Why can't I feel the rain on my skin without trying to put myself to blame for it
The world around me returns vividly
The nightmare is what I’m living  
My palms moistened by tears because the hands that used to hold them fell

They’re a clenched fist now

I had romanticized every red flag
All his potential I created in my head

Oh the beauty of poetry
It could be, it should’ve been

But it never is, is it?

I caught you inside her and you said you were trying to fill the void.
I asked, "hers, or yours?"

There is nothing here for me save for the trail of broken hearts that drag behind my feet

"Don't move". She sits behind the stand. She's become a shadow, but the light is showing her eyes above the canvas, looking at him, paintbrush in hand.
He stands there, eyes full of wonder and curiosity, smiling but not too broadly, so as to allow her to paint his natural grace. They are alone in the studio, but this picture is captured in its frame.

The ticking of the clock grows exponentially louder
and aligns perfectly with the throbbing inside my head
He turns and leaves me alone
yet again

You say you're not a writer
Yet your words wrap their silken arms around me
and caress me as gently as you do.
They fall unto me like the sunset over the ocean;
slowly, vibrant, mesmerizingly.

He said to me
You are the ocean
90 percent of you undiscovered
Untouched & unreachable
And I want to drown in your waters

We could talk about my outfit. How the emerald green brings out my eyes, but I'm far more curious as to why you don't see that my appearance is simply what I hide behind
We could talk about the barista. How she took a little too long to pour your coffee. Instead I'm wondering why she trembled when she took your money
We could talk about the traffic. How the mindless swerving and enraged screaming ruins your mood, but never mind that, tell me why you duck your head slightly as we go under a bridge, or why you stop at every yellow light as though you're afraid of the risk
We could talk about the weather, but I'm more interested in the scar along your chin that only reveals itself to me when the sunlight hits it
I’m just so tired of the small talk. As though we don’t have each of our entire worlds to discover. As though we have lived our entire lives to discard the things that have shaped us. When really it is so much more invigorating to tear the walls down and talk about the things that actually ******* mean something.

I caught you inside her and you said you were trying to fill the void.
I asked, "hers, or yours?"

Worry when she stops arguing over the messy pile of ***** clothes on the floor. Worry when she no longer pushes you to call your mother and ask how she's doing. Worry when she stops coming home and rambling on about her day.  Worry when her opinions turn into, "whatever is fine". Her voice muffled now, something else is on her mind. Worry when she loses the glimmer in her eyes that used to be the only thing you ever wanted to be blinded by. Worry when you start to forget what her laugh sounds like.

These are the signs of kindling losing its flame. Worry then or you won't realize until it's far too late. When everything that matters to you is stained with traces of her and you’ll be reminded in the most bitter of ways.

Every inclination, compulsion inside of me is begging, pleading for perfection- the sole ambition for my constant revision. When I am unable to portray the extent and full capacity of my complete infatuation- although what I'm feeling is a complete contradiction to the meaning itself because it is not a short-term admiration, but a lifelong passion for you- and when I am not capable, when I do not express the absolute sentiment- no, the "kilig" I feel when you're next to me, when I feel you inside of me not only physically but emotionally, I feel... I feel as though I am not making you see the way you have taken over me not in the way a hurricane devours a city, but in the way spring brings all of the flowers to bloom and the grass turns its brightest green and the birds begin to sing... you, you are my spring.

He came home to find every trace of her gone except for the smell of raspberry perfume floating off the sheets and a small handwritten note. "I'm sorry" was all she wrote.

Why does it have to be so hard?

I'm still tearing apart at the seams but by now you've already forgotten me.

"Our love is the drug you need rehab from."
But no matter how long I'm kept locked away from him- draining the remnants of his essence from me, and
hopelessly
trying to replace it with anything,
oh god, anything, everything else-
the minute I step out the very air that I breathe will be him again. Every breath that I take after will replenish me.
As if he doesn't know he's woven along
my lungs and he is the blood that flows through my veins.
As if he doesn't know the
scars
he's left on me.

You're not happy when I'm happy, and you're not happy when I'm sad, so what exactly do you want me to feel? What emotion will be enough for you, what expression will make you love me again? You left because it was too hard to be with me and now you're back because it's too hard to be gone? I can't be with or without you there's no peace in this tragedy we call our story.

His love was the sea and I'd fallen in love with sailing

Imagine your world being on the other side of a raging river and you're all out of lifeboats. So close yet so incredibly far. You try to swim, but you're frozen in the icy waters. You are no longer able to stay afloat and nobody can hear your screams over the crashing waves. Before you know it you've been swallowed and you're sinking to the bottom. Meanwhile, the only thing on your mind is "if only there was a way to part the sea". I'd stop all the waters from flowing if it meant simply feeling the rush of your body around me, and I suppose that's what I felt while I was drowning. It was you taking away my every breath and it was you filling my lungs. I finally understood what it means to hit rock bottom.

If this is the end then why do I still see you every time I close my eyes and why can't I forget how it felt to have you lying next to me? All those times in your jeep haunt me as I'm driving through the streets and I can't see the roads anymore I'm being blinded by all the times you sang Garth Brooks to me and how you'd reach for my hand in between shifting. The roads are all a blur and I'm slamming on the breaks but I can't stop the images from flooding my brain. I don't see the black ice covering the roads I'm spinning out of control and all I can hear are the lavender words you whispered while we were alone in your bedroom. The breaking glass only gashes my skin they do not bring me sanity. I come to a stop and the shattered glass all around me only reflect your face. I can't crawl out of the wreckage in my head I'm paralyzed and while I'm lying here snow starts to cover me and I'm just praying that I'll become numb to you.

I want to write. I want to ramble on and on about the symphonies of my breathing and the adrenaline of adventure soaring through my desires. I want to elaborate on elaboration. I want my heart to spill out with the roll of my tongue. I want to invite you in. I want to walk the ground of every culture and discover the hidden secrets in the nooks and crannies of the world. But I've lost my muse.

You flashed a smile and I felt a novel unraveling. I began to trace the words written in the way you carry yourself, so reserved. Each breath a sentence. Every move a paragraph spelling out the dance of our bodies so perfectly in sync. I flip through the pages of your essence and become mortified by how easily I'm lost in you. You've taken me in with every chapter as you unlock yet another story. An entire series, and I'll never be able to finish you. I'll spend an eternity engulfed in your story, finding every misspelling and wrinkled page, and kissing your words until my lips are stained black. Then you start writing me in. I sit back, watching as the pages rustle and turn as my breath is forced from my lungs. The binding comes undone as your fingers amble along the curve of spine. I look up, and in your eyes I can see the end is far, far away.

But what if I give in
lie down
close my eyes
fall asleep
and

It's like skydiving. You weigh out the possibilities: the negatives, the positives. You talk yourself in and out of it ten, twenty, thirty times. Your heart never stops racing. You soar, all the way to the highest possible altitude. You're feeling more alive than you've ever felt, and you build up the courage to take the risk, the potentially fatal leap.  
You convince yourself it's worth it.
Then you jump.
And you fall.
It's beautiful: the view, the freedom, the rush.
You keep falling.
And falling.
But there's no parachute.

I saw his smile in the clouds. The buzz of conversation on the subway was the haunting sound of his beautiful laughter. The wind in the trees was his gentle touch. The radio played the sweet melody of those three little words on repeat. Falling into bed at night was being wrapped in his arms.
  The darkness of the night was the  abandonment that swallowed me. The stars outlined the path of his footsteps out the door and into a life that no longer featured me. The coyote calling out to the moon was the sound of my heart begging his memory to escape me.

I've decided to fall in love with words instead of people.

Along with my coffee my lover goes cold sitting in the chill of the September wind. His eyes scream bitter words to me. No longer is he the kind heart that I love. The warmness of his presence was gone with the summer sun.
I long for him not as an infant longs for her mother's touch, but as an addict longs for her drug.
He once made me burn the light of a fire on Christmas morning.
Now, I'm rotting in the fireplace.

You flashed a smile and I felt a novel unraveling. I began to trace the words written in the way you carry yourself, so reserved. Each breath a sentence. Every move a paragraph spelling out the dance of our bodies so perfectly in sync. I flip through the pages of your essence and become mortified by how easily I'm lost in you. You've taken me in with every chapter as you unlock yet another story. An entire series, and I'll never be able to finish you.

I'll spend an eternity engulfed in your story, finding every misspelling and wrinkled page, and kissing your words until my lips are stained black.