I’m trying to define myself but no one ever taught me the words,
And I think my greatest sin is that I can never learn anything for myself.
There are the brief moments where I am alive,
Like when a cloud parts and the sun finally begins to seep through,
When I run through the grass with earth between my feet –
But there are so many more when I feel I am a moment away from disappearing,
Holding on to this universe by a mere thread,
Nothing more than a shadow.
Except sometimes I am a colourful explosion, I am chaos and metaphor and love,
I am reinventing and rediscovering and I was made for this,
The endless green of meadows and fields, tripping over trees,
Laughing and spinning in the storm, I am made of memories and words I preserved,
Childish laughter and a sense of belonging,
I know we were hopeless and mismatched but a single song can take me back to the day
We spent twirling in the rain and the time I convinced you we belonged,
That we had a place in this world,
And we lay under your bed and I wished you’d kiss me but you never did –
I didn’t know love could cause such pain,
Not when it was the gentle, mutual love between friends,
Not when it was the love of childhood or nature or the stars in the sky and the earth on the ground –
I wish I could return, not forever but for a moment,
I wish I could see the sun glint off the water without the fear of drowning in the back of my mind,
I wish I could surround myself with softness again without being suffocated,
I don’t want to stay here forever but I hate that I have to leave forever –
Can I be autumn and summer and winter and spring?
I want to light fires and curl up in the winter,
I want to watch the snow gently fall to the ground and fire crackle in the hearth
and drink hot chocolate and watch bad movies with family surrounding me,
but still, I don’t want to give up another summer to do so.
I am five and I am nine and I am three and fifteen and twelve,
sometimes I feel ancient and weary with this life,
but I wonder at the rain and the cleansing of the world and the clear blue sky
and I still love like a child does,
I won’t remember being here,
the memories I have are hazy and distant at best,
I am watching two lovers in the rain and I can hardly remember which is me or why they are here or how one of them will remember this day for the rest of her life and the other will forget
I wish I could remember all the times you held my hand I wish I could document them and replay them every time I felt alone,
Except that I wouldn’t, sometimes I need to return to forest paths and the stars to feel myself again –
But they’re so far away now, who let them escape?
I wish I believed in wishes again
I watch the clouds part, the sun beaming down,
I spent half my life fearing I’ve lost the ability to write
Memories that are so almost perfect I’ll spend my life remembering them,
In my mind, they’re golden, sunlit,
I hate them cause they’ll never return –
I am the sum of all my good memories.
The sky seemed so bleak for so long,
People seemed so vacant –
I think the colour is returning now, but I can never trust that it’ll stay.