This is heaven, surely not here.

When I turned 15, everyone started catching up with me

At first it was a fun game.

I bought new running shoes

and stayed a good mile or two ahead

Never minding the people I brushed past.

But bystanders are only bystanders

if they don't speak.

Mine knew me and how I see.

My feet were walking quietly but quick

and the race didn't seem as such,

and I retained my tenuous rank

as leader untouched by the pack.

Fine, and funny,

those behind can sneak by too

when you do not look to check

yourself against them.

Walking now, sliding down

Not given up but steady

not good enough to break

the mold is cold

and a few years down the road

I won't be worth that effort.

Pop, bing.

I hide you away, become myself.

The mad grass feeling on your arms

Deep blue, cool blue, roll and dive

I don't know what I'm writing.

Dirt and walls crumbling onto skulls

standing there plain, in a white dress.

So. Soft and brush your cheek

Freckles. I bite my nails

My eyes whipped on wind taking me to a different place,

we're back and I'm crying

Blood on my palms, dripping.

Does this mean anything?

Smoke ring, dancing

Oh, cry cry.

Sorry.

Flashlight eyebulbs

take my words love them not me

No, didn't mean. Love the latter

purple white and the stripes

have you seen them today?

Vomit bubbles up and please don't leave.

This is pathetic

Back on a cliff, forks fall down before I do

You built me a table and a lamp

and I hug you

on the way down. Stay here

There's a theme.

Oh, you know?

I think

I'm done.

...

I am so sorry for everything I put you through.

Do you know what you did?

They've never seen the likes of what you have of my utmost heart.

The path to it is all grown over with thorned vines.

And you thought it was pretty. Sunny.

There was an air of reckless abandon on it you couldn't,

can't, help but admire.

But you prefer paved roads made of concrete.

So you put up a gate and charged $100 a head.

Nobody but you would see the intricacies

in how the flowers grew in the dirty dusty road,

so would never think to pay so much to pass,

and slowly you would so starve me of company

and hoped the dirt would dry and turn to ash;

for you to mix with water and stick bricks in;

for you to relegate to another back-road for your personal use.

But I've loved you for the time you spent walking with me.

These thoughts so often now seep

and crawl into the folds of my brain

and settle in between its soft tissues,

saturating and bonding with the rest.

Your winter comes to call,

to lay its hurt down.

The words arrive in flurries.

You obscure my vision for all else.

Ice in the brain, ice in the brain.

You exit and leave only the cold,

my mind to atrophy

after your echoes have knocked down icicles

to slice into me

and leave rivers where warmth once was.

I swear I'm back the moment it all melts

licking at puddles in my palms

to tide me over until I find your face.

This is crippling.

Oh, how I long to bring you down to my level

and make you stay.

I could take you and keep you and twist you.

But I'd be sorry.

That's the difference between you and me.

These hands have not made for days.

Days. Days is a word of time,

and time escapes me.

It presses in on me.

Evades me and pounces again,

knocking me down each time

certain it has done the job for good.

But I dream of leaves

and I smile in this space

I call home, which I have built

and shaped into something acceptable.

A place which offers,

if not solace,

then at least a private venue

to thrash my head against the objects inside.

I could leave wherever I am,

and wherever I went;

back and forth.

A bullet in a box of lead.

Never sure, because certainty isn't permitted.

It's all on me.

Thrash thrash thrash.

Since she was a child, she saw colors in sounds

and felt the way you'd pronounce a word with her fingers.

Her feet were in the sea and her hands in the trees,

Anchors, reassuring. Solid bits to tie the drifting veils in her head to.

Bugs and plants and wind and dirt kept her sane and satisfied

far past what any person seemed to be able to.

She'd walk with them and smile, sincerely enjoying her time with peers,

but the thought of a home at the bottom of the ocean,

of existence as an everlasting patch of sand

was what really set her heart on fire,

what brought her to life.

There was an untouchable, indescribably profound piece of sadness

in the very heart of anything she'd do,

after she realized that's not how the real world works,

rising up from pits in her stomach to reach around and wind tight knots

in her throat and mind and breath.

Slowly she choked on this sentiment until the colors stopped pouring from her.

Though they stayed as tints and shades

rippling in her muscles when she ran,

pooling calmly in her heels when she came to rest in a spot of sun

quiet and kind.

A fanciful phrase from a friend or a story will slosh the hues

against the walls of her mind, set her off again,

tilting toward a horizon she knows doesn't exist,

but is still worth reaching for.

I hope that when you hear someone passing by

mention me,

you feel like you've just missed me,

as if I was across the hall and had left

before you'd gotten up to come find me.

Do not attempt to tiptoe past my door

and do not smile and wave hello

when I finally do catch you.

It's wise to wait until you're safe

and warm in your bed

before you open your eyes and sigh sweet relief.