Thursday, January 24, 2008

writing is writing. this is from the middle of last year yet i didn't want to delete it

Half everything. Putting your all in leaves you empty.

Ever since I can remember Ive stared at the same smile on so many different faces, but seen through it to the same let down. How you look at yourself reflects how you look at other people, if youll be jealous, if they will envoke empathy or pity. Every vessel in my body feels like its on a mission itll never complete, the sun will never set. There will never be a moment to rest or forgive myself. We leave traces of white as we shed our old skin. This is love, this is loss. This is trying to understand where you fit in in the world and with those around you. Everything we love we can eventually kill if we arent careful. And I dont mean murder.. sometimes you dont have to die to still be killed.

"I can remember when I mattered, just not to you."

He started out an evil man with the most evil heart one could imagine. At least thats how it always seemed. He wasnt born this was, no one evil really is. Something happens to make them that way. Burned in the past, he kept everyone at an arms length distance away- no one was going to ever hurt him again, no one would ever mean anything to him, more than they had to to stick around until he was done or bored. Hearts wasnt more than just a game to play, as far as he was concerned. Deep down in that heart dwelled pure motives, but letting them show would be a play on the words always played on him. A travesty on romance. He never felt he did it right, anyway.. but the stimulants to get it right were never sold on the corner drugstore market. Girl after girl would either make or break him- gone as quick as they came. And they came and went with as much impact as wind has on a brick wall. He was somewhere between unnoticed and noticing. Life just wasnt worth living, and he wasnt living at all.

Until her, of course.

As all stories go, he was sure she was 'the one'. Suddenly world domination didnt matter so much, suddenly the impact on him that other girls left didnt feel like craters, more like ripples or scratches. They barely left a dent. Did any even exist before her? He would surely forget. Write? Work? Make calls? All wastes of time as far as he was concerned, unless she was the one he was writing or calling. She was the ocean and he was the shore, she would retract, leave him dry, then come back for more. On the same hand, he would leave her drained but stay there until she came back to be replenished, to stretch out and show off how beautiful she really was under the bright orange sunlight. Either way, there was no way he was going to keep her from flooding in past the barriers he had been building for years. The dams were unstable already, rotting away and waiting for the right change in temperature. She was an incandescent light in the darkness that kept him hidden. This was both a positive and a negative- he would see why eventually. Drawn to her like a moth, she kept him away from the world. He lived like this and was happy since what more does a moth need than light? She was his everything and he took advantage of it.. he pushed it, and kept pushing.

Then she took away that light...

Maybe the light had made him blind- but losing it made him see. Many excuses could be made. Moving through the shadows she would leave none of her own. They moved aside for her. She was extraordinary, and she was wasting her time with the likes of him. Why hadnt he seen it sooner?

"No, I need her." This was ridiclous, this was absurd. This had to stop. How could he go on without her, living the way he was now to the way he wasnt before. Go back to doubting what every girl said, go back to purposely losing their numbers so they never got closer when the morning came. So he was never there by them when they woke up in the morning. Life before her was foggy, she was the only real thing. There is not a part of her that is distinguishable as inadvertent. As he made plans she laid her own out without flaw. Maybe if he was better to her, she would be herself again, she would love him with the light she had glowed with before.

A few days had passed. It seemed as if he would never get through to her, never on his own.. So he made a deal with what some would call the devil, others would call a lawyer. This was weird and a first- someone giving up everything for good.. not for evil. But a deal is a deal. There was no hope left, after all, since he had lost Hope. "Anything to keep her." He plead, "Anything to not lose her." The deal was made but the fine print was anything but.

Oh, and he got her back alright. That was the deal, it was fulfilled. But not all of her. Just her body. Not her soul.

"I'll show her I've changed." But little did he know- she didn't want to see him anymore. Unperceptively he alive with new blood, feeling like he was seeing out of new eyes. The world looked brighter. Finally he had the wakeup call, and not the ones hotels promise but are always late on or forget. She was sick of him walking by her, not with her. Walking on her, not to her. White changed to black the night the door shut behind them, the night after the deal was made, the flowers that were scattered on the beach were now long gone and buried in the sand. It was like a silent memorial for the moment he wished they had just never left. It was really that night on the beach that he started to appreciate her, but it had already been too late. The moth now has nowhere to go. All he can think about is what he gave up and lost, not what little he has left.

Friends all laughed and patted his back, 'all marriages have problems,' theyd say, as if they really understood or related- all of them still single. All of them still happy. "You still have your health." But he lost that in the deal he had made, he lost that losing her. "You could be crippled, at least you have your legs, you still have your arms." But what good were his legs, his arms, if they werent taking him to her.. holding her. These futile attempts at cheering him up had started to become more insulting than they ever were helpful, and he curled back up into the corner of darkness, waiting for his light.

She stays in dark corners with her back turned, afraid someone will try to rip off her mask and see she still loves him. She wears only black when she used to be full of color- it's more like an inside joke, a masquerade.. to appear as if she wants to be left alone. Look like your going to a funeral and no one will ask you how you feel. She wants to belong by not belonging. They made it this far in those shoes but their souls are wearing thin. Neither wants to give up but neither wants to give in. Their motivates have been changed, sides have been switched for battle of good and evil. He had seen the error of his ways the same way she had, only he had moved on from them to become the man that she deserved. It was never the same after that night. They would bicker, have sex now and again, and she will leave her bag or her sock.. it seemed to him it was the only reason she would come back. But at least she came back at all.

Ever since that day, she would always hear him but never acknowledge that she did. She would love him but never show that she did. There would be some sort of weakness in the jurisdiction if she did such a silly thing as that. Makes you think of the fucked virgin pretending after seven years she never lost it. She was the reason he had it. He sat in longing for the girl that had changed him, that had made him see life was more than existing. Life was feeling alive.

"Leave her? But I love her." Leave and love were more than two letters away, and in order for him to get it all out he'd need a whole notebook. He grew up installed with enough word programs to know never to leave your family. Never to walk out. But how would he ever get her to see what a difference she had made to him? To see if it made a difference to her?

His life had become that of a dog, sitting by the door waiting for his master to come home. Waiting to be owned, needed, not simply pet on the head and passed by. Waiting for a responce to every move he made, wanting her and her alone to be his audience. There was a scratch on the wall in the darkness, but no light to see it. Through all of his plans hes forgotten, through all of the paperwork and plots he puts aside he would be lucky to get a nod from her. Not in the sarcastic way, but he really considered himself lucky when she acknowledged that he was still around. That he was still loving her. The only difference was now he was the one being walked by, not with. She was the one walking on him, not to him. The tables had turned and the corner of it had hit him pretty much square in the balls. He deserved it all, he knew. So he suffered alone, waiting for the moment she would look at him with the eyes of a lover not the eyes of a stranger. "Im sorry" never meant enough, but then again until he had almost lost her, "I love you" didnt either. He never really saw that he had lost her, just sort of lived with what was left. What he hadnt killed of her starting from the day he met her.

Probably on his grave would be the words hed be saying all the way to it, "Im sorry."