myownmake-believe

I dug my nails into your skin as the flashing lights spun us upside down. We pinky promised. You screamed that I was the girl you loved as I yelled out in terror and love and elation and frustration. We pinky promised. You smiled at me as we crunched through the gravel alley holding hands. We pinky promised. I ran my tongue against your teeth as we stood by the neon lights of the closing concession stand. We pinky promised. I sang sweet country songs all night long, even if you didn't hear them. We pinky promised. We spoke words of devotion and loyalty and last chances for the thousandth time. We pinky promised. No take backs.

My love for you was like a cube. A cube of what is irrelevant. Choose a substance, any substance. However, make sure it's something strong, and unwavering. Steel, or diamond, or iron. Something indestructible. In fact, make it a bunch of little cubes stacked together. This one's for your pieces of hair that stick out, this one's for the night I heard you cry. That one over there is for your jokes about my tiny hands, all those are for every time you held me close and let your walls come down. There's one for our summer of innocence, and another for our winters of strife. Some are flashes of smiles, whispers of kisses. Others are screaming, s

The light pitter patter on wicker lawn furniture, or the insistent banging on glass window panes. It sounds like secrets,                  whispers,                    promises,                      every word held inside. The world holds its breath, shuts its eyes, exhales. The emotions flood. They darken the city pavements, pack the country soil.

I have no words. A million thoughts spinning through my mind, moving like whirring blades, but the power switch does not exist, the extension cord obsolete. There is no drag and drop, no plug to insert, no copy then paste. They stay place, stubbornly, dig in their heels. They do not transfer onto my legal pad, for they are frustratingly comfortable racing through lanes of nerves and arteries. I wish they would slow. My system is overheating rapidly.

I don't want to see myself from anyone else's view. When I consider it, my palms itch, my stomach heaves, my breath draws shallow and that all too familiar cloud creeps forward. It envelops me, and I crave a hiding place. A castle in a far off land where I can carry on with my Prince Charming. A deserted shoreline that I can stride up and down, collecting broken shells. Even an overgrown field where I can lay in the warm, forgiving soil and breathe in the clear air. Everything here is polluted. Their minds, my mind. Mine most of all.

It hurts, you know. There's a bright, stinging wound, a bullet hole, if you will. Some days, it scabs over, and the throb is pale and distant and hushed. Some days, it explodes in a rapid fury, and all I see is red and venom and rage. Occasionally, it just lays open, contemplative, and I'm overwhelmed by your laugh once more. Somehow, every tourniquet falls away.

It's funny how I thought I'd be the one to shake you to your bones. It's funny how I thought I'd be the one to tease you with my scorn. And yet here I am the broken-hearted girl playing the lovesick fool. And here I am the demolished dreamer daring to reach for you. And it's funny how I thought I'd be the one to leave you wandering lost. It's funny how I thought I'd be the one to watch you beg in the dust. Ain't it funny? How life laughs in your face. Draws a nice straight line then spins you round in place. Never thought I'd be But here I am the broken-hearted girl playing the lovesick fool. And here I am the demolishe

I sit cross-legged in my room, surrounded by scraps of paper. My memories are recorded in brief sentences, long letters. I have plenty of words at my disposal - words like infinitesimal, quiescent, melancholy - but no one to take them. Some sheets of loose leaf are crumpled - a sad attempt to disregard my own mind. They never make it to the trash, simply seep into the hardwood. I never forget. I remember running from the stream of praise for my sister (never for me), hitting the stone wall hard, scraping my knee. I remember my ankle turning as I tried to leave you in the dust (you always stay fresh in my mind), but my foot caught in the mud