Home

Being home is a blessing and a curse, to quote the old cliche. I get the sure feeling of being loved, of having my presence in a room mean something more than just the filling of a chair. I get to feel, physically touch and feel my friends who I miss so much it hurts and makes me unable to eat or sleep when I'm at school. I get to drive my car, be in my house, sleep in my own bed, be near my mom. I can shut my eyes, let my breath out and feel myself sink beneath the pool of memories that are everywhere I look. I am this place, and it is who I am and where I fit.

But with all this comfort comes the sure knowledge that it doesn't, won't, can't last. Soon I will have to leave again and go back to the place where I have no true friends and no incredible memories. It is this impending loss that keeps me up at night. I keep myself awake, don't let myself fall into sleep because I want to have as much time here as I possibly can. I can feel the shadow of the pain that is coming. Maybe it would be easier to not come home, but I couldn't ever do that. My friends make me whole. They remind me that when words come out of my mouth they are worth listening to, and that hugging me is something that is absolutely crucial to they happiness. With them, I can say any silly ridiculous thing I want and they will accept it as me. I don't have to be continually proving myself to people who barely know me.

We sat at Zach's house last night and we weren't even talking about anything at all, but we made each other laugh so hard. We were helplessly bent over the table, unable to breathe or speak past the laughter. I hadn't laughed that hard in months. With my friends I can say anything and they will love me anyway. They will. It's not something I have to worry about. But I do worry. When I'm away, they are bad at staying in touch. I don't blame them, but it hurts. It wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't so lonely, but not hearing from them and not talking to anyone at school makes me wonder on my worst nights if I am even right about my friends at home. But they do care about me. They prove that every time we are together.

But the point is that as much as I love being home, I know the love and happiness I feel will translate itself into tears and bitter emptiness when I return to school. I can't sleep.

Standing in the rain,
Feel it wash away your pain,
And see dripping from your fingers,
All the contents of your brain

See pooling on the ground,
The thoughts that held you down,
You open your mouth and words come out,
You've managed to make a sound

Before the heavenly shower
All the words that give you power
Were imprisoned in your mind
Now talk and talk for hours
As you leave your walls behind.

If only it were as easy
As standing in the rain
Washing away your struggles
Erasing all your shame

But the rain does not have magic
It's just water from the sky
Though it falls and falls around us,
The ground will soon be dry

What that means for us is
No quick and easy fix.
We've got to do this thing ourselves
My thoughts on that are mixed.

If I could do this for myself,
I'd not be in this mess.
Though I know this way is better
Still I wonder if it's best.

For who am I to pick and choose
What things are good about me?
For all I seem to notice
Is the people who would doubt me.

If some supernatural element
Like rain or wind or snow
Could wipe away what's bad in me
My heart and mind would glow

I'd never silence the words I think
Or hide my true intention
For without my shy exterior,
My thoughts would all bear mention.

For now I'll strive to sift and search
Through all my qualities
Begone the bad, embrace the good,
And find who I should be.

Far Apart

Sometimes, he messages her.
It is always random, never consistent, never the same time of day,
Always the same words.
His words show her his warm, wide brown eyes smiling at her,
Appreciating her,
Making her feel loved and adored.

But even though she can feel the warmth of his eyes and see the way his mouth curves upward as he smiles at her,
He is still so far away.
Even if he were sitting right beside her he would be far away.
She tells him everything
Except what she is dying to say.

"I love you. I always have."
Those words are impossible to say,
Yet they rise up her throat whenever she is near him or whenever she hears his voice or whenever she feels his smile breaking over her.

He tells her she deserves better.
She doesn't want better. She only wants him.
She knows that what they have now is special, sacred to both of them.
It's a friendship rivaled by none other and one that they both hold near their hearts.
She doesn't want to break that.
That's why she holds her words close to her chest,
Clasps her hands over her heart and bears the pain in silence.

Because he is worth it.
She would not alienate him for the world.
He makes her laugh and she can tell him any crazy idea that pops into her head
Or unravel any convoluted thought
And he will listen
And laugh
And tell her that she is special to him.

She will hold those words to her,
Trying hard not to let them carry her away to something
More.
She wants to be his more.
She already holds him when he hurts,
Now she wants to be the one to make him laugh,
To play silly games that end in them rolling around and pressing their lips to each other.
That's what she wants.

But she knows, as she reads the sweet messages that he sends her in the dead of the night,
She knows that he isn't ready.
She knows that if she speaks the words she is desperate to release
Knows that he will run
Far and fast.
She couldn't do that to him.
She wouldn't.

So she plays the role of his friend, his confidante.
It's not a hard role to play, she does have those feelings for him too.
But as she finishes their conversations,
She closes her eyes and can't help but
Think.
They are so close,
Yet so
Very
Far
Apart.

Will it always be so?
She hopes with all her heart that
Someday
They will be together.
No longer separated by the words unsaid.
Close.
Inseparable.

No longer far apart.

Wasted

Let's get wasted together.
I think it could be fun.
You here, or me there,
It doesn't matter really
As long as we are together.
Drink.
Feel it burn its way down your throat.
Cough a little,
It's okay.
It's your first time.
I'll pour the poison down my own throat,
And feel it warm me all the way to my toes
While I wait for you to grow up

Get drunk and hold me.
I think you would.
Once your restraint was a little farther gone
Then I think you would put your arms around me
And whisper into my hair
And taste your way down my neck
And breathe your story into my mouth,
Gently.
Because no amount of alcohol could make you cruel.
You are kind, good.
But get drunk.

Make with me decisions you think are bad when you are sober
But I know are right.
If you were drunk, it might feel right to you too.
Then you would understand.
I don't have to be drunk to want you,
But I think you might have to be drunk to want me.
That's okay.
Just hold me.
Because I think you want to.
I think the drink could show you what you really want,
Once all your inhibitions have fled
You will hold me,
Be with me.
You won't know your up from your down,
But you will know me.
I will be there with you.

And that will be good.
Maybe as we are falling asleep together,
You will breathe softly into my neck
That I was right.
That this was right.
That we are right.
Together.

Princess

Locked high above in the highest room of the tallest tower, the princess sits on the windowsill. Alone. She looks to the world outside, to the trees, just at eye level, to the other turrets far below her, to the people that move in dream-like slowness below. She breathes the outside air through the screen that presses its checker-box pattern into her exposed thigh. The breeze is pleasant, she thinks. Even in this room that is her prison, the breeze can come in. She looks out, taking in the world.

When she tires of those below her, the princess turns to look at her tiny cell. She sees the bed with her sheets and her books, and her desk, and her walls, white and blank but for the few hangings she has put up. Her eyes flick to the door. Unlocked. As it has been her entire life. She is imprisoned in a room to which she holds the key. The door remains unlocked. Yet the princess never leaves.

The one time she did, one time she let herself out of her above the world prison, she was afraid. The words locked inside her throat and she couldn't breathe let alone talk to anyone she passed. Everyone seemed too close, they moved so fast.

They left her behind. By herself, on the ground. She knows, intellectually , that no one cares what she is doing, yet there is the ever lingering feeling of being watched. While she is on the ground, removed from the safety of her prison, anyone could be watching her, mocking her, or just ignoring her.

It is with this in mind that she wraps her arms around herself and flees back to her tower, shutting the door behind her.

But not locking it. She never locks the door. Afraid of it though she is, the princess still wants the others to talk to her, to like her. To want to hear what she has to say and how she has to say it. She wants the people to come into her room more than anything except how much she wants them to stay away. They terrify her, yet the people on the ground also fill her with a longing that hurts so bad it leaves her gasping for breath.

The princess, trapped behind her unlocked door, is trapped within her walls. But more than that, she is trapped within herself.

Breathe

Breathe in, breathe out. That's all I can do, right? Even though each pull of oxygen makes the life within me hurt. Not like shards of glass, but instead like a bruise. Blood pushing up against the skin that just barely holds it beneath the surface. Hurts. Not so good. Hurts bad. Like...like a child in pain. Hurts like a whimper in the darkness. Like the wind knocked from my lungs in a fall. Or a punch in the stomach. Hurts like that.

They make it easier, my friends who know what he has done to me. They don't try to stick up for him as I expected. They tell me they are losing respect for him. That he doesn't deserve the agony I feel over him. Or my continued anxiety. In my heart I know that I don't want the hurt it would take to continue to be friends with him. We had a friendship. I don't think I can keep it up. Friends tell me he doesn't deserve it. He is so good. But he was bad to me. But he wasn't. He only did what I asked him. I needed an answer. And he gave me one. I thought I could live with it. But he is telling me to stop trying so what if I really do? Wouldn't it be easier to NOT feel this pain behind my skin?

Breathe, breathe, breathe. It hurts every single goddamn time. Life without love. Hurts.

I am loved. Just not in the way I want. Girls like being physical just as much as guys. Trouble is, I at least associate physicality with...feelings of a romantic nature. Why do guys not? How can holding someone by their soul not be twined in with feelings of, at the very least, lust?

I feel tired. Despite having slept all day, I feel exhausted. To bed now, I suppose. May I wake and find that this has all been a nightmare.

But I know better. Not even in narcotics induced sleep can I escape him. He hurts me again and again and again and he is not even himself conscious of the pain he inflicts.

Feeling Lost...

But I know where you are. You are in between. In the middle. The middle of here and there, far and near, old and young, now and then, this and that, mature and young, adult and child, spontaneous and planned, rigid and flexible,

What was and what is.

That's where you are. You float there, in the middle. Just float. Because you don't know enough to know which way to struggle. Don't know where the surface is, just know where you are not. You might move your limbs every now and then, but you do not really expect to get anything from your efforts. You just float and feel

Lost.

I know that feeling. The indefinite quality of your surroundings makes you feel lost, but what really bothers you, occupies your mind, and occasionally makes you strike out against your Middle place, is the Alone.

Stuck in the middle, you feel like no one else is around you. You focus so tightly on the inside of your eyelids that you fail to see. See that the place where you are is not an empty middle ground, devoid of anyone who could possibly see what you see. No.

I am here. So are the others. The countless others of us who are in the Middle of everything we have ever been and everything we will ever become. We are all floating in this nothing. I could reach out my hand, should the desire strike me, and grasp your wrist, just as you could do the same to the one on your other side, and the many that reside with us here could all touch hands.

Touching my hand won't make the Middle any less indefinite. Won't make the murky water clearer. Because I don't know the direction in which the light cuts the surface any more than you do. Here with you, all I see is what you see. All I know is what you know, and all I hear is the shallow, panicked sounds of my own breath and heart. No, I can't make the middle any less terrifying.

All I can do is hold your hand, can give you warm, solid, pulsing proof that you are not alone. The emptiness you feel is only beneath your skin as you slowly rid yourself of everything you are in favor of everything you might be.

Losing all of those things that once defined you is frightening, but you've already done that. If you were still clinging to the past, you would not be here with me, in the Middle. So release a bit, the worst part has passed. All that remains is to float. Float until slowly, slowly, slowly, the world rights itself, the light begins to make definite angles, and the surface breaks over your face. When that happens, when your world defines itself anew, then you can let go of my hand and do this for yourself.

But for now, hold tight. After all, with your eyes open the way they are, we all make a beautiful picture, just floating along, hand in hand. It's not a portrait of terror-inducing isolation, but a scene of the young-becoming-old holding each other in place as we glean from the Middle the things we could not get on either side. We need not be overwhelmed by the Alone to learn what the Middle has to teach us. I can learn just as much with my hand grasping yours and yours grasping mine.

So don't feel lost. Just hold tight to me. Together we may overcome the fear of the unknown land that is the Middle.