It’s like we brush shoulders. The contact is brief, slighted and swiped before the mind makes anything memorable out of it. Our lives collide on angles, sweeping and diving across one another but never completely meeting.  

Suppose I found someone who makes me strive to be a better person. Someone who cheers me up when I’m down. Someone who engages me in delectable conversation. Someone who is extremely physically attractive. Someone who makes me feel right. Someone who I relate to. But suppose that person doesn’t want me around. Consequently, I am made to feel worthless and insecure. Despite everything, I want to believe your precious words because without them these clouds dangle and drag me down. The silence speaks for itself, so am I to believe that none of it is true anymore?

I want to achieve greatness. I want to succeed. It is a product of the perfectionist within me, but I need to become better and I want to be improved. I want to find myself as no longer nothing.

I want to slip apart from these careening veins and swing from spools of linen and asphyxiation.

We became parallel lines. Once, we met and intertwined, so aligned...and eventually and subtly we divided in distancing lines remaining on the same plane but never colliding or combining again, merely dancing in the atmosphere that always seems to linger after something significant ends.

You don't notice.

It is hardest to be happy for someone you love, while they are happy with someone else and without you.

I was never good enough.

I know you want this, this fair weather friendship. So I’ll let you have it. I won’t drop to my knees to save you. I’m done. I won’t let you destroy me.

I’m awfully awkward and nowhere near eloquent. I’m weird and not so subtle. I dive in too quickly and drown in the recess of air. I’ll push you away when you’ve become too close, and I’ll bury emotions beneath the sand. Regardless, you won’t find another person quite like me. I will defend, protect, and provide for you until my limbs let out and collapse. I’d never lie to save myself, or at all. When your spirit has crashed, I’ll be there to scoop you up, and mend your soul. I extend myself with bruised wrists, prepared to take on everything. I’ll do my best to make you smile. I’ll go crazy with you and create amazing memories. I try my best in everything I do. Is it so wrong?

Drowning in the abscess of beauty. His voice with its swollen, melodic drone, lulls me into a subtle surrender. The ordeal is almost over. I can surpass the pain, if only for a while. Please remind me, how the pieces fall together when internally pulled apart.

Playing nice, pretending not to feel. Though it hurts when you went away, I stay a while and mind my own business.

Somewhere over the rainbow. Behind the trees, inside the city. Behind the dumpster, inside the alleyway. Cries, endless cries. Soft, pebble echoes. Lingering.

You weren't supposed to get under my skin.