Really.

Really [?!?]

Yes, I really did miss you.

Your surprise, surprises me.

How could I not miss you? You are so easy. I feel myself falling into your words, your eyes, as we talk. As the world melts away around us. Every place is our park bench, our private universe, where no one else...really matters. We talk about everyone that matters, matters out there..but it's out there.

Vulnerability. Weakness. Some of us, we're made of weakness. Those who are strongest and...bold, so bold-they're often the ones suffering the most. I know you are snapping at me because I have something you don't. Stop trying to talk me into believing that, that you are so self possesed now. That a few months doing something different has changed every bit of you. I don't believe it for a second, especially when I can see straight through you on this very normal Fall afternoon. When the distractions, the overt beauty, the newness...when they are all stripped away, all I can see is you. And the huddled, scared little one that you are.

I've learned something real. Relationships are a choice on two ends. Love is expressed differently by every person, but the choice to react, enact, and exist in conjunction-that's not one sided. I'm not sure I want some of you back. I'm sure I don't want some of you. What's the time limit on hurt? When is the time to move on? Exactly 800 hours from the time of the impact? Do I get a grace period if I have a lot going on? I am a science experiment, put on this earth to feel more than anyone else, to experience humanity at the very core of who I am-not just my humanity, but everyone else's, too.

Who asked me? I don't want your burdens! OFF, off, off.

No wonder I forget that I have a choice, too.

I decide not to ask if you missed me. Really. I didn't ask.

I didn't have to.

Really.

One word, said it all.

Really.

I WANT you, I want you right there, on my park bench, on our bench, forever. I thought we at least had forever.

Really.

I know what I have to do to get you back.

Why can't I see that I have a choice? Why can't I see that I don't have to have you? What about you, having me? Does love and a genuine soul really scare you so much? Do you have to run so far?

Really?

really.

Crisp:

This Fall, falling night

That perfect, shining apple

The distant warmth of your tight smile

Awaken/Autumn

7:45

The bright numbers stare me down, full of the potential. Little potential, for 7:46.

I can’t know what to make of this morning. It is bright, so bright. It is shrinking my pupils to tiny pinholes with it’s fall sunlight. That tree, there, is ablaze with Fall. My mind is, too. As these leaves die, I feel like I’m getting some sort of fresh start. Watching these leaves fall, these trees shed, is like some great big annual metaphor for the shedding of whatever..was. The potential, like those numbers, of what could be. What will be, if I only let my eyes open to it.

Is it too bright out there to see a thing? What could be is an overwhelm. The mist, the mist..I miss the comfort of your underwhelm.

And then, just like that, with a hint of what this day and this life can be, the sleep is out of my eyes and out of every muscles. Each muscle thread twitches with everything to do and be done today. I must arise. Awaken, awaken, those fire-leaves call. Awaken. Feel the still air next to your bed. Move it with your just-rising grace. Listen to the strains of a tune, emanating from some distant inspired soul. Dance, dance to that stolen song and that borrowed moment, for what else will you do? You cannot remember yourself now, or you will lose to that jarring screech that is reality. Hold the grace of this bright, bright morning, firmly in your…

In your…

In your outstretched palm.

Streetlamp Ghosts

Missing people. That’s the worst. It’s like…loving and losing, without the closure of just losing. They’re there, right in front of you, but you can’t reach them. Someone checked out or just isn’t right, or right there, and there you are, wandering about the parking lot of the closest building, letting the rain soak your hair and wash your eyelashes as you close your eyes to the dull ache, the ache that used to be pain, the pain of not-losing. That parking lot was full of memories and empty of what could be real.

I miss so many. I miss how you make me laugh, how you make me feel like a shinier version of myself, you made me feel so accepted. All of you, you had to leave, because of life and distance and wherever the path was taking you. It’s nights like this that make me remember it all, and make me wish the ghosts of all of you would stop dancing around me in the mist, beckoning. I wanted these ghosts to disappear, and I wanted to be overwhelmed by all of you really and truly being there, surrounding me, crushing me with your reality and presence. That’s all I want. All I want is everything, all I want is the impossible: to go back to what was, freeze that moment in time, and stagnate joyfully.

I can feel myself reaching out. Some of your ghosts are so real. I have just lost you, and you. Come back, my fingertips whisper, as they brush the dampness and the air. Life is to fall in love with things that will never last, because nothing is yours forever. We search for forever, desperately, but it will never be ours to have. Forever is the greatest fantasy, your ghosts tell me, with laughing eyes and mockery turning your smiles into crushing sneers.

My boot hits the ground with a sharp thud as I come back to what this really is, stepping back. This is just a stormy night, I am just by myself, and this is just an empty parking lot. Each of these spaces had cars, filled with people who fled this place of stark loneliness, to their reality of people. People who are real and now, their fleeting forevers. They didn’t want this place, and as much as my heart yearns for each of your ghosts to become real and embrace me right now…I also am aware of the light in my current reality. I have forevers, too.

I walk out of this parking lot, this dark space, it’s one yellowed light leading me to my path, my path to forever. I was allowed a step back, and a step back reminded me to live in my present. Maybe, one of these ghosts will come back to me. For now, I must preserve my life for what is here and alive.

Thud, thud, thud. My footfalls and my heartbeat. Alive.