When You Remember

You took my heart. You may not have been trying to, but I lost my heart to you when I met you and now my memories won't let me let you go.

Do you remember the first time we spoke? I was terrified and I felt like a mess but you told me I looked beautiful.

Do you remember the first time we danced? Maybe you didn't want to and neither one of us expected it, but even when I messed up you were patient. That day was the first time I was scared I would start to love you.

Do you remember when you sat close by while I poured my heart out through the keys of a piano? If you were paying close enough attention you might have seen how much it hurts when I play that song. In that moment, though, I was content just to have you listen.

I remember the first time you gave me a ride home. When we pulled up outside my house we were talking about kissing. You said the one with the dolphin didn't count.

Do you remember when you played with my hair through the sunroof of my car? I love it when people play with my hair. You told me you'd be lost without me. You knelt down so we'd be at eye level while we talked and then suddenly you got quiet and moved your head so the sunlight was in my eyes. You apologized for that but I didn't mind. I looked at you and you told me my eyes were pretty in the sunlight. I felt beautiful in that moment. 

Do you remember when I caught you watching me play the piano? I think you thought I was mad at you, but when I told you I wasn't you came with me and I played for you.

I remember when you told me you didn't want me to leave. When we eventually did part ways you opened my door for me even though you didn't have to. And still we kept talking and hugging and flirting and before you left you joked about wanting to kiss me. 

Do you remember when I pulled my hair out of my braid so I could feel the wind, and you came up behind me and put your arms around me? You started touching my hair, and you had to pull me against you so that other people could pass by. You sat by me and for ten heavenly minutes ran your hands through my hair. That was the day I admitted I liked you. 

I still remember how cold it was outside when we held each other as we just stood and listened.

Do you remember when you put your arm around me and let me rest my head on your shoulder? I could feel you breathing. Every time I coughed you asked if I was all right. You kept holding me closer for no apparent reason and sometimes you ran your hand through my hair and let it rest there. I wonder if you thought I was asleep.

I remember when you didn't let go of my hand. You pulled me in and held me close enough that I thought you didn't want to let go. I remember how sweetly you brushed my hair away from my face. When you soothed my insecurities with a few simple words. When you knocked me off balance but caught me in a hug before I fell.

Do you remember the many times you ran your hands through my hair? When I cried into your shoulder? When you carried me to my car so my feet wouldn't freeze in the snow? When in the dark in my terror you held me and calmed my fears? When you told me you were there if I needed you? Does that still hold true? Because I need you now and you're not here.

Do you remember the second time we danced? My hand in yours and your hand on my waist. You sang the words softly in my ear.

Do you remember when we played in the river and got wet and made sailboats out of leaves but we didn't care? That was the day I poured out my heart with closed eyes and an open soul.

I remember when you told me you loved someone else. I didn't want to believe you meant it, but deep down, I knew you did.

Do you remember the last time we danced?

Do you remember when I saw you holding her hand? Of course you don't, you didn't know I was watching. It was so painful but I couldn't tear my eyes away. The most embarrassing whimpering sound involuntarily came out of me, but no one heard me. 

Do you remember when you told me it was over? We treated it like a joke but I think we could both feel it. That it was true. That even if we weren't meant for each other, apparently we weren't meant to be friends either. I remember I knew it was true when I said hello to you and you pretended not to hear me.

I remember when you used to hug me for no apparent reason, and sometimes you just didn't let go. Now you don't ever touch me.  I remember the many times you touched my hair and took my hands, and the day I decided to trust you. You gave me hope that there are still gentlemen out there. I remember when I'd ask you for help and we'd end up closer to each other. It always ended up looking romantic. It felt romantic. When you noticed I was cold and put your arms around me to keep me warm. You didn't have to do that. And I remember the last day I felt that we were friends. I understand now how you found your way into my heart.

So I'll ask again, do you remember? Because I remember it. I remember it all.

This is just some strange form of therapy, I guess. I've read back over my journals lately. All the things you did for me and to me and with me and I really think you might have liked me once. 

And I keep asking myself the same questions over and over:

Is it my fault we don't talk anymore? Did any of it mean anything to you? Could I have done anything to change it? Do you think you could have ever loved me?

I still remember. When you remember it, too, tell me because I want to know if any of it meant anything to you. No, don't tell me. I don't want to remember it anymore. It hurts too much. I'm thinking back over everything and my face keeps ending up buried in my hands. I don't know what I was thinking or feeling or doing, but it's too late to go back now.

I lost my heart to you and I'm trying but I don't know if I'll ever find it again.  

Fairy Heads and Tales

The storybooks lied to me. Life doesn't turn out the way they said it would, because there isn't really a happily  ever after.

Little Red got eaten by the wolf on the road to her grandmother's house and most certainly was not saved by a daring woodcutter who just happened to be strolling by with an ax. The fairy tales didn't tell you that after 'happily ever after' happened, Phillip died and left Aurora all alone. In reality, Cinderella never even made it to the ball because her fairy godmother was just a figment of her imagination and there was no pumpkin carriage or magical transformation into a beautiful ball gown. Snow White died before the story began because the huntsman followed orders and killed her in the forest. 

And really, Ariel never even existed because mermaids aren't real. Period. 

Hansel and Gretel got eaten by the witch, Rapunzel never left her tower, Aladdin died in the Cave of Wonders, and Peter Pan grew up. Jack didn't bargain for any magic beans, he traded the cow for something that could keep him alive because that's what normal people do. Nancy Drew never made it out of her third case alive, and in real life, Lizzie Bennett never got married because she was too outspoken for a woman of her time.

When I was a little girl, I thought that life was a fairy tale. When I was in elementary school I thought that divorce was only something that happened when a spouse cheated. When I was in junior high, I thought that I would find true love and I'd know it as soon as I found it. Now I'm in high school, and I've learned the hard way that none of that is true. Life isn't a fairy tale, divorces happen for every imaginable reason, and I don't really know what true love is. In the fairy tales there's a good guy and a bad guy. Not in life. In life the lines have been blurred so that I don't know the difference between good and evil. I just know that if you're not the winner you're the loser.

No, in real life there's not really a happily ever after. There's just a series of 'once upon a times,' each with their own dragons to fight, and sometimes it just doesn't turn out the way we expected. 
Because when people stop treating each other like princes and princesses, they realize that their heads were filled with too much magic for real love. They realize they don't want to spend the rest of the story together and most definitely not happily ever after. So they go their separate ways to fight the dragon or rescue the damsel and they forget to tell the readers what really happened. 

They don't live happily ever after, because there is no such thing. 
Not anymore.

Nirvana: Part II of Elysium

My dreams turned to nightmares have become more disturbing of late.
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A man holding a knife to my throat and cutting off my hair instead of killing me. 
I'm not sure why it was so traumatic for me to lose my hair in a dream but it was.

Hiding and they came in with guns. They were furious because they couldn't find me and I knew if they had they would have killed me. Even so, they fired into nothingness and I was certain I felt the bullets hit me. 

Opening the door to the barrel of a gun. Somehow I was only shot in the leg. 
I bled but I lived because someone stopped to help me. I think I knew him.
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Being chased through a maze with no entrance or no exit and I couldn't lose them.
No matter how fast I ran and how many places I found to hide, they still followed. 

I'm afraid to sleep. No monsters under my bed, but they live here in my head.

The worst ones are when I wake up with tears rolling down my face into my hair. 
But I can't remember what my dream was, I only remember that it was terrifying. 
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A few weeks ago I caved and started sleeping with my stuffed animals again.
I know it's childish and silly, but now I don't feel so alone when I wake up.

Once I woke in the middle of the night to the ringing of my phone. I knew who was calling before I picked the phone up and when I answered it and heard that voice on the other end I remembered that I'm only alone in my mind.

My dreams still scare me, though, because I can't do anything to stop them. 
Except not go to sleep and by now I've seen how well that doesn't work out. 
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It doesn't, so I'm stuck with these nightmares until I figure out how to fix myself.

Cracks in the Screen

I'm cracked. I've been injured and damaged and fractured but I'm still not exactly sure why or how and I'm trying to figure it out.

I'm crazy. I have too many homeless words and not enough people to tell them to.

I'm lonely. I have made and lost friends my entire life. I haven't spoken to some in years, but I still remember them and I always will. I miss them.

I'm broken. He may have broken my heart, but I'm trying not to let him break my soul. I know he never meant to hurt me, but he did. He held my hand tighter than necessary, enough that for the tiniest sliver of a moment I let myself believe he might feel about me the same way I feel about him.

I'm defeated. They tell me I've never seemed this defeated before, but I've never felt this defeated before.

I'm scared. I don't know what should happen after my worst nightmare comes true. My dreams have all become nightmares, so maybe I'll just say good night to my dreams.

I'm masochistic. Being near him is the most beautiful torture I've ever experienced. Why do I keep hurting myself? 

I'm poetic. Because poetry is really just words bleeding from a pen onto paper, and these words were written with my blood and sealed with my tears, and I think I enjoy using metaphors and run-on sentences.

I'm defiant. People keep telling me that it's wonderful to get older. From my experience, all I've noticed is that the older you get the grayer your hair is and the more dead people you know.

I'm uncertain. Sometimes I wonder who I pray to every night. And I wonder if He still listens to people who call Him by the wrong name. 

I'm conflicted. I wish you would stop, because my heart is breaking, but I want you to keep going, because I like the feeling. 

I'm alive. I feel like I'm on fire at the thought of him ever loving me. But I know that will never happen, so I need to stop thinking about it. 

I'm distracted. Because there are some things I just don't want to remember. I wish I could forget the confusion and the hallucinations and the heartbreak and why are the memories I still have the ones I wish I could forget? Because you forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

I'm timeless. I feel younger than my body but older than my soul. So disjointed and out of place within myself.

I'm lost. I'm floating in an endless sea with no idea where the shore might be, and I can't stop using these metaphors.

I'm childish. I don't like being alone in the dark. I think I still believe there are monsters under my bed.

I'm pensive. I can't stop thinking about how much I miss what I never had, what could have been. I didn't realize how much the smell of summer makes me sad. It makes me miss that something I can't name.

I'm delusional. I have conversations with him in my head all the time. I should stop doing that. I probably won't.

I'm serene. It's silent, and the best kind of silence is when you're with another person but neither one of you feel the need to fill the silence.

I'm afraid. I'm terrified of being with someone, but honestly, I'm even more scared of being alone.

I'm hurt. A scream tears itself from my throat when I see the scarlet blood running in streams down my arm and I'm still stuck on these metaphors because the blood isn't real but I feel like it is and all I can smell is the metallic scent of blood.

I'm cracked. These are the cracks in my screen. The cracks in my sanity. The cracks in my soul.

How To Forget

Don't turn off the lights. Imagination runs more wild in the dark. When the lights go out, the memories flood in, and if you let that happen you won't ever escape them.

Don't close your eyes. Same principle. If you allow yourself to sleep, the nightmares will wake you up anyway. It may seem impossible but all it takes is focus. Focus on a tiny sound- the ticking of a clock or the whirring of an air vent. Concentrate on it as if losing your concentration means the end, because sometimes it does.

Avoid people, places, music, everything that reminds you. Sometimes everything does remind you. In that case, you simply have to become a recluse and take up knitting while you watch reruns of Star Trek and eat whatever happens to be in the pantry. It'll keep your mind off it.

Don't talk about it. Talking will only make you remember. Push it to the back of your mind and build walls of fake laughter and forced smiles around it. And if all these things fail and you still can't forget, you'll just have to find something else to break your heart instead. 

These methods work. Usually. The problem is that if you do this trying to forget the past, you'll forget yourself and end up losing the present as well. 

You never really forget. Even if you don't let yourself think about it again for the rest of your life, deep down inside you still remember, and there's nothing you can do to change that. The only way to forget is to realize that you can't. 

To My Mirages,

I keep wanting to say you're wrong, but I know you're right. Eventually we'll have to let each other go. And I'm trying, but in my heart I don't really want to. I can't let go of you yet, just like I can't let go of him or her or them. I know that everyone has to let go of something, but I guess I hoped God would make an exception in my case. He didn't. I didn't really expect him to.

Have I told you why I'm so scared of the real world? Of letting you go and facing the future? Maybe you already know. Probably. I'm afraid that my future home is going to look like the one I have now and I don't want that. I rarely ever want to go home, but I no longer have an excuse to stay away. 

So now I tend to get away a lot without my parents ever knowing that's what I'm doing. The only way to describe it, really, is that I'm getting away without running away. Last week I had a little talk with God. The window was open and I just closed my eyes and felt the wind blow my hair against my face. For the first time in a long time I felt at peace because I knew everything was going to be okay. I'm going to be okay, too. I am. Everything's okay. 

There was one of the many times I drove to work. I opened the sunroof and rolled down the windows and turned the music up loud. The faster I went, the more the wind whipped my hair around, sticking it to my face, and the more I forgot. I was perfectly aware of the annoyed drivers who probably thought I was high, but I didn't care. 

Once I went to the park with my friends instead of going home. Once I went to the park with my little sister and her friends. I drove them there and then chased them around until it was time to get one of the girls home for dinner. Another time I spent three hours on the driveway painting while my sister's friend watched. She's six.

Not long ago I spent a few minutes being taught by my friend how to play Falling Slowly on the piano. I won't deny myself the small moments I can steal with the people I love, because it's not the weeks or the days or even the hours we remember. It's the moments. The moment of silence that doesn't need to be filled. The hello after years of goodbyes. The phone ringing after midnight. The look in his eyes that I can't describe, but that makes me feel connected. The soft smiles edged with sorrow. The 'I love yous' whispered when the laughter dies down. The slow pace of his breathing after he falls asleep. The stillness in the faces of the dead. The moment when I'm falling and they catch me. 

I'm desperately trying to remember that everything's okay even as the terror and the stress and the hopelessness bury themselves inside me. I'm too tired to fight back right now. I'm terrified to graduate and move on with life, and I know that all too soon real life is going to start. I'm afraid it's going to hit me like a slap in the face.

I don't want to face reality, but I know the longer I wait, the more I grow to love you, the harder it will be to enter the real world. But I don't want to let go of you just yet. I'll always love you, too.

All my love,


Midnight

Dear Midnight,

We're sorry you're hurting. We know you're going to deny it, but it's true. You're hurting. We saw how you let yourself go numb, how you put on the brave face for your friends and your family and your English teacher. You told them everything was good, and you convinced everyone but yourself. Don't lie to us, hon. We saw how you walked out of the house, got into the car, and drove away, and how as you did so, you allowed the facade to fade. We saw the tears run down your face and we felt how tightly your hands gripped the steering wheel and we heard the crack in your voice as you wished for a cop to pull you over. We tasted your tears, so don't think we believe you when you say you're fine. You know what 'fine' stands for, right? Freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional. We know you're not all right, and we know why. 

It's because, darling, you're finally being forced to face reality and it's not what you expected. In fact, it's a lot harder than you thought it would be, and it hurts. The pain is like a cancer inside of you, and if you don't remove it quickly enough, it will grow and fester inside you until it kills you. It's already killing you inside and you know it. The problem is that you're not fighting back. You just slip into your bedroom and open a book, hoping that it will let you forget. And it does, for a little while. But then you have to remember again, and the cancer comes back a little bit bigger and stronger than it was before. Fight it, girl! Fight against the pain before it consumes you and there's nothing left in you to hope. Nothing left of you to love. We know you hurt. We're sorry.

If there was something we could do to help you, we would, but the truth is that we can't help you face reality, not now or ever. And it hurts us to say this, but someday you'll have to let us go. You can't have your own life in reality with us here to keep you back. We don't want you to let us go quite yet, though. We want to do what we can for you just a little bit longer, because sweetheart, we love you. We're so happy happy you've talked to us and kept us with you for as long as you have. You gave us life, but now we're giving it back. We have to say goodbye now, but just know that we're always there in the background, even when you can't see us. Don't forget us, but don't hold on, either. Live your own life. We know you can do it. We're on your side. We trust you, we believe in you, and we'll always love you. Keep fighting.

All Our Love,

Your Mirages

In the Dark: Part II of Voices

In the dark, I leaned my head against the glass. I wanted to break it. I wanted to feel close to you. But I've never felt so far away because that glass was harder than steel. 

In the dark, I tried to hear you breathing, wondered if our hearts beat in sync. There were less than inches between us, closer than we'd ever been, yet I felt as though we'd never been further apart. 

In the dark, you found me and held me. With your arms around me, I felt safe, but it wasn't real. It was just another one of my fantasies. 

Still in the dark, I pretend I hear your voice calling my name. I know I'm deluding myself, but I answer back anyway.

I lose track of time and space and light as I sit silently, helpless to stop the invisible spiders from crawling up my back and filling me with desperate terror.

I lie awake at night and wish that I could see the stars, but there's a ceiling there instead.

In the dark for too long, I'm trying to find some light, even a flash of lightning. 

But after spending too long in the darkness, the light hurts.

So I'm still in the dark.

Light: Part I of Elysium

It's hard to find the light these days. 

Even though it's been a year and a half, I still use the peppermint soap that smells like Christmas and heartbreak because heaven needed an angel but it had to be her. I don't think heaven needs any more angels for a while. I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes, suspended on my lashes as they decide whether or not to fall, but nothing gold can stay and she was more golden than most.

And they fall. The salt of my tears stings my eyes, but it's a good kind of pain.

I'll never forget when I laid on her bed and fell asleep to the sound of her voice. I wish I'd gotten the chance to say goodbye. No, I had the chance. I wish I'd taken it.

Nine days later I was away from home and I smelled the lotion she always used. I almost started crying right there in the middle of Bath & Body Works. 

Last week I stepped into her room for the first time since she died. Even though there was still the blue and white bedspread, and the television, and the wooden board with the family birthdays written on it, it was empty because there was a wheelchair in the corner and the pillow my sister made for her was still lying on the bed. It felt like no one had been there in a while. The clock hasn't even been changed back to daylight standard time. I couldn't help my tears. I put some of that lotion on, too. It's still in the same spot on the counter in the kitchen. I don't think he has the heart to move it. It would feel like letting her go.

Every time I read the book she gave me I feel a little bit closer to her and to heaven because it's from 1937 and it smells like old pages and years of love. At least I kept the birthday cards from every year, so I won't forget how her spidery handwriting looked. I'm afraid I'm already forgetting the sound of her voice.

I went for a drive and turned up the music so I wouldn't have to think, because thinking means feeling and my heart is battered enough already, but turning the music up just made it worse. And I didn't want to go home but eventually I did.

If I were to die today, I would visit each of my friends and tell them how much they mean to me. I would take my family out to dinner and tell them I didn't really mean to go so soon. I would let them know that as hard as it sometimes is to believe, I really do love them. But in the end, I would drive to the overlook and watch as it got dark, and I would look out at the valley for as long as I could. And then at last I would join her and all the other angels I hope are waiting for me. 

Maybe there's some light after all.

Conformity

They're extinguishing the sun, shutting it out, blocking it from the places it can do the most good.

Don't let it touch you.

They're killing my creativity. They took away the crayons and gave me gray pencils instead.

Don't let it touch me.  

They turned off the music and replaced it with broken glass and chemistry. 

I won't let it touch you. 

They want me to conform. They're trying to turn me into the perfect woman, a mother with well-behaved children, a spotless house, and a flawless appearance. 

I won't let it touch me. 

I won't let it touch me.

I won't let it touch me.