I'm not sure what I'm supposed to feel, but I'm going to guess it isn't this. Whatever this is, it feels like delirium. I should be able to think of you without my chest hurting. I should be able to see you without my breath hitching, my heart thumping, my arms losing all muscle mass. I should be able to pass through a day without hoping to see you, even when the chances are impossible.
But it isn't so. What am I supposed to do? I feel like crawling into myself all the time, taking the corners of my skin and folding them in until I become nothing - an invisible spot on the horizon, something that would give you an excuse for why your eyes gloss over me.
This, I'm giving you honesty. It's too bad there's none of it in person; just words on a screen in a place you'll never see them. Ah, I suppose you don't care. But I wish you would. There is nothing in the world that I hope for more. Wildest dreams can wait. What's it going to take? I can't force you to love me. I can't force you to care. But I can hope.
There's that fucking word again: hope. It's a disease, I tell you. It stalks you in your sleep, and crawls on your back in the day, the little demon child whispering in your ear that things might turn out the way you want them to. But they're lies, trust me. So far nothing has come of that demon's promises.
Do you know what this is? This is a little girl curling up inside her head because there's nowhere else that'll have her. This is innocence reclaiming the child through terror. This is me.
And that is you. Over there, somewhere, indistinct, blurry around the edges; utterly beautiful.
I thought I was lonely before, and then I had the misfortune to find myself wanting you. You're sitting on my chest, crushing my ribs, forcing the air out of my lungs. You're killing me, you know that? Somehow I'm getting a pleasure out of it. Somehow I wouldn't want to die any other way. But that isn't to say that I wouldn't rather life. Trust me, there's nothing more that I want than you to get up of my chest and take me by my hand, pulling my ragged body to its feet, and having your breath blow some life back into me through the part of your perfect lips.
The demon child says it's possible. My brain fuzzes and my eyes transition in and out of focus and for a second I believe it's true. And then the circuits spit out their spark of interference and tell me to stop hanging onto someone who'll give nothing.
I guess nothing is what I'll get seeing as nothing is what I'm giving. Because I'm over here, and you're far away over there, and you don't know that I ache and buzz and shake and hope that our eyes will meet across the empty space filled with people. You won't know that this place has become a ghost town, because you won't know that you're the only one who shows signs of life. You won't know. You won't know. You won't know, and it's all my fault.
It's my fault my world revolves around 'what if's' and 'ah, but no's'. It's my fault that my whole life has become a dedication to someone who's oblivious. What I wouldn't give to know whether you think of me every once in a while. No doubt I don't walk across your thoughts as often as you cross mine. This imbalance is unfair. But the adult me knows this; it's the child who cries out from the trauma of the delirium. It's the child who knew better, who loved better, who saw clearer, who gave more, asked for less, wanted for nothing but what could be made with patience and two hands. The adult has moved on to games of wordsmithery, and has found it leads to nothing but brick walls, especially when words are hoarded, kept inside and let to bleed. It's the adult who knows that walls are of your own making. It's the adult who's afraid to tear them down. And it's the child who's trapped inside.
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