31.  
Funny what you think of after a collapse. While lying in the dirt the first thing that comes back is never quite what you’d have guessed.  Or envisioned. Nor assessed the second time around I digress. And they play back like a movie reel. Funny how things come harder the second time around. Were reliving memories, like watching movies with no sound. And if you could have, you probably would’ve. Said you’d check if all your limbs were intact still and then try to get out. But whats the point in running away? Was there a point to be made? Did I even make it? Now that I mention it. I believe ive forgotten to regret and repress it. And if the spaces are narrow. And all the walls begin to look the same again. Is there really a place far enough? Are there visions in the pavement, a beautiful arrangement, and sophisticated places. Where you could dwell on the past. But still remember why you hate it. This is wild imagination. Its purely entertainment im painting in color, but im running out of room. In fact, running out of time even while im just standing in place. Its like im drowning in the water but im standing on concrete. It’s the land beneath my feet.  Am I losing my mind? The equivalent to falling bricks. When you’ve got wings but theve been clipped. And they think you’ve got it all figured out. You know what youre doing now don’t you? You seem happier now don’t you? Why don’t you tell us your secret. Why don’t you voice your opinion. As if there was any secret at all to be kept, I digress this is the mess within my head ive tried to keep buried and or left for dead again. And this quiet silence is piercing. The silence is violent, how it drags you down with frigid grips at the ankles. Whispering “come home again”, “weve missed you for some time”. But you ran away for a reason, so why the hell would I ever come back? And then the flashbacks come, breaking in unannounced. The things ive kept forgotten for so long. The faces. The people whos names became blank spaces in my head.  I remember once they came in said, “You think this is bad? You don’t know the half.” And they laughed. It’s funny what things come back. The first things you see. How they sort of smiled like it’s only a joke but they were lying. There was something else inside of his eyes. All those secrets people tell to little children. Are warnings that they give them. Like, “Look, I’m unhappy. Please don’t make the same mistake as me.”. Because I guess im only a joke. And my life is just one big comedy. But nobodys watching. And ive stopped laughing along to the track. Because I gave up on everything. So why do they constantly visit me? Do you know what its like? To give up on love, well it hurts,to give up on everyone you used to trust the most. There are ghosts, and there demons, and they all live within the walls. In every room you ever visited. In every crack and fracture in lonely halls. So they speak out in volumes. And you try not to listen. So they speak up a little louder, from a hum to a whisper. And its sinister almost inaudible, yet it resonates so loud. It becomes so much it almost perforates your eardrums. Why are those old worn out jokes on married life told at toasts at receptions still? How does it never occur how easily people are burned? And how easily people are afraid to trust or want or feel or want to trust to feel? Speak slow, the echoes in the shadows know. They hear you in your sleep. And the way you shift positions in your dreams, the darkness peaks in through the windows as the light dismisses itself. Almost polite, almost embarrassed. Everyone knows were afraid. Afraid to feel the same pain we discovered a few years back and some days. So we want nothing to do with you. I was happy for once, I was doing just fine. My timeline was becoming redefined, and I could stand on my own without anyone’s help. Especially not the people who pushed you off the edge in the first place. Those who left you to drown in yourself. The very same people who tied your ankles to cinderblocks. The very same who promised you safer ground. And then the earth quickly broke away. Why they then offered you their hand in safety. You’re a contradiction, a manipulation. A fabricated idea of what it meant to have someone. I gave you trust. I gave you visitation rights. So if you believe this is about you, then perhaps the shoe fits. Funny what you think of in the wreckage, lying there in the dirt and the dust and the glass how you’re suddenly somewhere, in the desert, in the nighttime, and it’s getting close to something like Christmas. Something warm and familiar. An open ended idea of literature written about a time where things felt, and smelt much similar rather than simpler. Glance back, I remember how irresponsible id been. How pathetic I was to blame everything on people instead of myself. I was sadistic, and intolerable. Improbable and pathological with the things I spoke. How did I ever manage to expect to keep anyone around? When all I did was keep my mind occupied. Not occupied with anything but shallow thoughts of insecurity. When that summer ended we came back I was jobless still. I guess in retrospect I should’ve sensed decay. Then that day, how you said, “I just don’t know” and I promised. We’d rearrange things to fix the mess I’d made here in some way. And that goes in the same cycle. And that goes in the same way I lost everyone I had. But I guess in the end we just moved furniture around. Don’t you get it, your demons never left. The demons in your head never moved out. They simply moved the furniture around. But I guess in the end it sort of feels like every day it’s harder to stay happy where you are. There are all these ways to look through the fence into your neighbor’s yard.  Why even risk it? It’s safer to stay distant. When it’s so hard now to just be content. Because there’s always something else. Now I’m proposing my own toast, composing my own jokes for those times I stayed afraid in bed. But never again. Noone will ever have control over me. No one should ever be that deserving or ever so worthy. And maybe I’m miserable, but I’d rather run forever in the opposite direction, than suffer your jokes again. This was just a well composed reminder, to never leave the doors open for old friends