A Portrait in Greyscale

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When I close my eyes and start to drift away 
I meet you in the darkest part of my brain.
You always kiss me, simply, and say
it shouldn’t be like this—
hidden in the realms of unconscious bliss—
but I grab your hand and remind you of my mistakes,
I’ll take us to a lighter place.
But the light illuminates the truth behind the dream:
the space, the time, how I’m splitting at the seams
And all I want to do is wrap myself around you
to keep you from slipping out of view,
but reality’s big hands always pry me away
just as the day always slips into my brain. 

Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. And suddenly, looking through my eyes is like being pressed up against a glass window, peering in on my own life as an outsider and watching each and every other benevolent being exist as the center of their own universe. Sometimes I realize how insignificant everything is— how each and every life changing moment only exists within the lives it touches, and despite how fleetingly it may slip by, we all continue to grasp for it until we stumble upon the end of our mortality. Sometimes I like to sit back and watch my cookie cutter world burst into flames, illuminating the sky and flickering with an eerie calmness, heedlessly burning the universe from the inside out. 

Well maybe I like to burn a little bit, too. 

The ropes around my wrists are chafing my skin;
I tug, tug, tug to get away,
incarcerated by these ties to security—
but I am not strong enough to break the fibers
of my only past consistency.
“Soon,” they say “it’ll all be so new,”
well I know it’s untrue, because I cannot
press play yet continue to rewind—
though I’ve grown tired of the old track,
hearing it skip would haunt my mind.
But with my feet glued to the floor here
how can I grow to be the person I claim
and with the sullenness of breaking free
prove I am not defined by another’s name?
Sometimes I catch a glimpse of future’s door,
though as I approach I see it’s revolving—
“Alone,” They say, “is the only way
to not get caught inside,” 
so I must cut the ties, cut the ties,
cut the ties

This morning we laid in my bed and you tickled my sides and kissed the back of my neck while we halfheartedly joked about how hungover we were (I still felt like I was going to die) and eventually came up with the most oddly casual analysis of exactly why we love each other. And then we’d have these comfortable silences—I’d lean over to kiss your cheek and put my head on your chest and my arm around your waist, like I always do—and suddenly I was hit by the overwhelming feeling of being so irreversibly in love that I had to shut my eyes and take a deep breath and you asked me if I felt okay and I nodded my head a little bit so I could just have one more second swallowed in the beautiful absurdity of my mind. But I didn’t feel okay. Because since you’ve been mine, every hole inside of me that was dug by some other girl or buried friendship or neglectful parent or bad health or anything else has been filled and I just feel so much more than okay. You make me feel like everything. If that made sense, that’s how I would describe it. But I know you and I know that it doesn’t have to make sense for you to understand and it doesn’t matter if one other single soul can possibly comprehend these words because they’ll never even be able to peek inside the little world we slip into when we’re together. And regardless of how many people swore they loved us in the past or how many utterances of former adoration previously spilled from our lips, I know I’ve never loved anyone like I love you and you’ve never loved anyone like you love me. 

So as much as she was genuinely happy for the other girl, she couldn’t help but internally amplify the voices of the monsters in her head as they sardonically chanted “That should’ve been you, idiot. That should’ve been you.” And as the sun began to set she traipsed lethargically to her bed, undressed, climbed under the covers, and stared blankly into the haunting darkness. Fingers laced tightly on top of her troubled head, the smallest sliver of moonlight creeping through her window and kissing her chin, she weakly attempted to ignore the empty ache that perpetually leeched off of her apathy and self contempt. And when she inevitably forced herself to shut her eyes and desperately reach for the sleep that stood miles from her grasp, she struggled to remember the sound of the other girl’s laughter and silently yearned for the days she was sullen and seventeen.  

If I’m being honest with myself, I’ll admit that I had always been enticed by the idea of perfection, but when I finally stumbled upon her, I faltered, became hesitant, and allowed myself to be swallowed by the fear of rejection. I let it fester inside of me; the cowardly trepidation would relentlessly suit up and strike my enamored soul with great ferocity until my pitiable timidity inevitably took over, leaving me yearning for the perfection I was too afraid to chase. But every spontaneous and accidental graze of her hand against mine would ignite my desire once again. And every laugh that escaped her lips would, without fail, flood sweetly into my eardrums and heart and I just couldn’t stop. I couldn’t rid my brain of the images of her subtly honest eyes, or the way she seemed so beautifully infatuated with life. And most importantly, I couldn’t escape the constant pleas of my mind to keep the walls up and to keep the impenetrable armor closely guarding my chest so that she’d never be able to see how utterly and transparently vulnerable I really was. So as much as she simply epitomized rightness and as fervently as I ached to silence every endearing fit of laughter with my lips, I was just so overwhelmed, so intimidated, that I internally vowed to only chase perfection if she felt the same way about me. So my lips kept tightly sealed and I kept my demeanor calm, casual, just to burry the truth deep inside of myself, and to make sure that I’d never lose what I could never have. 

Do you know how to feels to have the most perfect girl look at you like you’re made of gold? To have her kiss you so gently, so sweetly, that she must be afraid of pressing her lips too firmly against the pale skin of your forehead and shattering you into tiny little pieces. But she could never break you; before you saw her for what she was—the light at the end of your hauntingly black tunnel—she had already picked you up, piece by piece, and wrapped herself around the cracks and creases, holding all of you together, herself still weak and frail. Do you know how it feels to fear your heart may beat out of your chest with just the simplest traces of her fingertips burning across your skin? And with her hands tangled in your hair, her eyes whispering these infinite truths, could you stand to lose her? No. No, you never could. I never can.