Lines

Only she would express joy as pain because in her world the line that separates them is thin enough to break with a weak breath. She stands on one side, the pain threading throughout her being, growing stronger, because she knows how infinite the joy will be and she misses what she has not known. She feels it coming - yet she knows the feeling is but a single star to the warmth of the sun. Oh, to meet that sun, to feel the warmth she searched for and know it will not leave. To know she will not lose it... pain, pain waiting for a joy so strong... but she waits... not much longer now, so she waits... for agony to turn to ecstasy.

Gone

You think she's here. You think you see her, but she's already gone. Her mind made up, her soul at peace, finally. She is calm because she knows it won't be long now. The pain is almost at an end, because she won't stay to feel it anymore. She won't feel anything anymore.

Sounds

Have you ever heard a sound that breaks your heart open... a sound that makes your soul ache in its intensity... and yet you find yourself drawn to it... needing it... searching for ways to draw it deeper into yourself... because it is the only thing that brings you comfort...

Needing More

I once believed that I was easily forgotten.

It was the most obvious explanation for why people seemed to think of me only when I was in front of them. "Oh, you should have been there..." "I can't believe you missed..." "Why weren't you with us..." Not until the words were out of their mouths did they realize no one had invited me in the first place. And it happened so often, for so long that I truly believed that I just wasn't very memorable. I accepted it as fact, a fact that burned my throat when I spoke. It tortured my soul. But most of all it broke my heart.

So I ran. Even then I knew I was running away, but I couldn't stop... I couldn't stay... Perhaps if I started over, if I didn't let the past haunt me as it had, if I let go of my own fear, perhaps then I could...maybe then they would...

But it didn't work. Instead of being forgotten, I wasn't even seen. No one could forget me because no one even knew I was there to forget. I was invisible and Ralph Ellison's book made more sense to me than it had all those years ago as I sat forgotten. But I yearned to be seen... to have my presence felt... to be real. I yearned for someone to see me, to not forget me, to want me... but none of that is why I tried. I did it for the one person who never forgot, who always saw, even after all these years.

I did the only thing I could. I stared my past in the eyes and swore it would no longer control me, swore it would no longer stop me and I did something, something I had not done since I was ten years old...

I let someone see me.

And for a moment, I felt real.

But it was just a moment in the woods and the forest quickly closed back around me and I tried, but I could not find the strength again and I put the mask back on before anyone else could see...

Because in the end... all of those who see, leave... It is a horrible catch-22. When I am not seen, I run, when I am seen, they run. And so between dark and light, I am always waiting in the shadow.