I try to keep busy. Keep distracted. I convince myself that if I don’t stop moving, if I don’t close my eyes, if I don’t think about it for long enough, I’ll finally escape.
But you’ve become a ghost of mine, lingering in my favorite songs, movies, tv shows. You run your fingers down my spine over the clothes that are stained with the invisible mark of you. The Ramones T-shirt lays over the back of the chair, empty and somehow cold to the touch.
You refuse to leave me, even when it was you that left. If you must go–go completely. Do not fade in and out of my thoughts, that I am the one running now. Running, constantly. Sitting still, doing nothing terrifies me to a point of pure panic. I must do SOMETHING. I must, I can’t be slow until the sleep takes away the fear, or the memory of you, all together.
I think of all the ways I bent myself, changed myself to better meet your standards. How this theme continues–how I bought clothes you liked, and spoke like you like, and tried to act like you’d like, always hoping that you’d like me Better if I one day was magically able to have a good time at the club, or when I always was sweet and polite and had no opinions. Like if I could just play the right cards, I’d win the game and get to keep you forever.
The jokes on me. I lost everything on a bluff. I even lost myself.
Do you even remember me as I was? Do you remember how beautiful she was? How young and full of fire. She had a chest that contained the entire ocean, it flowed out of her mouth, salty and bitter, beautiful in its movements, the way the words shone.
Before all of this, I was a sad girl who slept too much, but she was absolutely wonderful, even if she wasn’t perfect. She loved with her whole being, all the pride and the anger and the fear–she loved with all of it. All of that fire. And it was an enduring, forgiving and giving love. It was always this way. She was sometimes brash and maybe even hurtful, she had knives hidden between her teeth and never quite learned how to speak softly.
She was raw and honest and real. She wasn’t ashamed of what she didn’t know. She just wanted to know more. To feel more. To experience more. To find love in hidden corners of the world that she’d yet to know.
She fell in love with you exactly like she knew she would. But in her defense, she didn’t think you’d be around long enough that it would actually happen. But you were, and it did. And you were always going to end up leaving, some part of me has always known that, so some part of her had known it too. But she still did all of it. She survived and fought and loved you so hard, for so long. And then you walked away.
I wanted to believe that I’d be enough, if I just did all the right things. But that’s not the way this game works.
It doesn’t matter to you what I did. Or what I suffered along the way. The cuts that became scars, that I’ll never forget the pain of. It doesn’t matter to you what I left behind for you. Or what I was robbed of when I was sent back to where I came from, despite what I wanted, despite all my love for you. Months of writing in notebooks about how much I wanted to be easier for you, how much I wanted to be with you, but how the house was trying to kill me. How it felt like it did in high school, when I’d walk in the door and something is whispering “you don’t wanna be here right now. And this place never wanted you in the first place.” How I started to choke on being alone, on the silence that followed me everywhere I went, on the knowledge that something was so very wrong and I was trying my best to fix it, and that it couldn’t possibly be enough to change anything.
I know I’m not perfect. You’re years late to try to take me down a peg like that. I know I have a lot to learn and a lot to grow into. I never forgot to be humble to that which is bigger than me. So maybe I didn’t do the best job. Maybe I still was angry, maybe I still was afraid. Maybe I just couldn’t figure out how to play the perfect girl with so many different voices screaming at me in my head all day long? Schools of thought on love and self respect swirling around and around biting at eachothers ankles.
All I wanted was to be loved by you. All I wanted was for you to look at me, and see deeper and beyond the rough edges, to the beautiful human heart of me. This soft girl with a hard set jaw against the punch that she always knows is coming someday, the girl with the shiny pretty eyes that dance when she talks passionately. The girl with the ocean for a heart, a spine inherited from the best of men–my bones made of honesty, loyalty, justice and compassion. The girl with the sweet bow mouth that could become weapon, could kiss, and love, could laugh and smile and steal your breath. All I wanted was to be your beautiful girl, the one you write stupid non-poetry about and always wanna hold her hand. That you wanted to be with, forever. Like roses, whatever it even means anymore. I just hoped with all the hope I had left that you’d meant what you said to Matt that night. That you’d devoted yourself to me. That all you wanted was for me to be happy. That you loved me no matter how broken, or different I was.
I was, for a minute. I remember. It was such a beautiful minute. But now the minutes over. You’ve moved on. I still don’t quite know where I’m going, but I hope it’s farther away, and closer to you, at the same time.
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