Pens In Unison

"The Storm of You and I"

 

 

You were a storm, and I was caught in the devastation you left behind.

 

Broken windows were your eyes, the fractures of happiness splintered to dust. You were a star corroded into a monster, and when I tried to reach down a hand to help you back onto safe ground, you turned away because you were to far gone to care anymore.

 

And I was by your side, powerless.

 

I saw it when you started to crumble, when you had everything and you lost it all: friends, family, happiness. Until you were nothing but a husk left with a lonely heartbeat.

 

I watched the numbness grow in your eyes everyday when you looked in the mirror, how the bright sunlit smiles vanished. Replaced with an indifferent frown that remained fixed on your face like a glued on mask.

 

I watched as you were burdened with new demons that dragged you down like iron anchors. The loneliness that plagued your conscious, and the arms and hands that had no one to hold or hold them.

 

I felt it when you started to go dark.

 

This letter isn't meant to make you sad or angry with useless pride. I'm only writing this to try and get through to the old you, or better yet, the old me. So don't take my words like thrown knives or fists designed to devastate you and break you down into nothing. This is an apology for getting to one of my lowest points.

 

I am sorry for letting everyone I love down, and I know somewhere deep down inside, you are too.

 

But darling, you have to remember, I am still reaching for the light

 

 

 "Go To Sleep, And Maybe You'll See Blue"

 

In a city of ash and bone and death,

A child was born,

cradled in a shoe box

wrapped in a coat riddled with holes.

Her mother left her,

to die alone,

but this cold and desolate city saved her.

 

The electric people that lived in the street lights,

gave her warmth,

the statues that moved in the night,

offered her shelter,

the birds that nested in the abandoned walls and buildings,

whispered their secrets;

They breathed her to life.

 

As the little girl grew older,

climbing city walls,

growing gardens in old abandoned churches,

a need grew in her chest,

a little, small thing

that slowly expanded

until she knew

She wanted something more.

 

In this cold and desolate city,

this intricate concrete iron-made slab of ash and bone and death,

she searched for the answer

to this burning need;

a desire

that burned up her lungs

with her wander-lust.

But one day,

she searched to hard,

the rain the she loved so much

made her slip,

until the little girl

fell down the wishing well.

 

And no one knows

what happened to the girl named Blue.

All we know, is what happened after.

When the city’s people gave up searching,

and the mundanes kept on shuffling,

and that little hope

that left this crumbling city of ash desolate once again

she reignited it.

 

She breathed the children’s dreams to life,

The unseen and the every day-to-day seen,

she made their wishes come true,

the worthy ones,

in the smallest of ways,

but it was enough magic,

to let you know it was real.

So go to sleep now child,

dream of a desolate and cold city,

made of ash and bone and death,

but throbbing with a heartbeat of hope that burns

so brightly, dreams can come true.

 

 

Go to sleep,

and maybe you’ll see Blue,

the little girl who befriended concrete giants,

who danced with electricity,

who breathed to life,

a Happy ever after

for this no longer cold and desolate city.

 

 

Thank you for being my Superhero.

 

 

There is a bright flash of neon lights. A cascade of colors that sweep across my vision, and there is music and a deep bass that reverberates in my bones like an earthquake, and my mind is a balloon untethered from the ground, going up, up, up into the clouds.

I can barely see your face, lips forming and shouting words in a rage. I don’t even try to grasp onto the firmness of those words because it is a thing on the ground, and if I focus that pain will come crashing down on me like a tidal wave and I can’t let that happen or else it will tear me apart. So I lean back on the couch of faded leather, my dress a rippling thing of blue silk. God there is so much silk in this place, vests and dresses and ribbons that are flying on the dance floor in a winding daze, somehow synchronized to the beat of this devastating music that plays out our heartstrings.

I can hardly bear it, and yet I am in paradise.

My limbs feel soft, pliable, like they’re made of clay. My head is a thing made of bubbles, all fizzy and barely there. Everything feels surreal, almost like a dream of a dream that I had when I was younger, except, I never dreamt of clubs, grinding bodies interlocked with each other, alcohol that sears the back of your throat, and substances that make you lose your mind.

I never dreamt that I could become this kind of person.

You are winding a path through the dance floor, drink in hand, your emerald green dress billowing around you as you move to the beat of the music. It makes me happy to see you having fun, even though I know you’re mad at me for turning to these kinds of things for escape, for losing all the good parts of me in the pain and depression and becoming something I’m not.

I know I’ve let you down, and it kills me, but at the same time I can’t help it.

I tilt my head back and close my eyes, trying to change the direction my thoughts are going, feeling the weight that I’ve been carrying for so long lessen as the drug takes a firmer hold and my mind gets looser, like a canvas stretched so thin it’s barely even there anymore.

I wonder if it should still exist at all.

When I open my eyes again the crowd has thinned, the music slow and heavy like it has a bad hangover of its own. A quick glance around tells me that you have left me to fend for my own. Your brilliant smile and needed friendship now only a fuzzy memory in my hazy conscious.

I pull out my cellphone from my purse, scrolling through my contact list only to realize I have burned up every friendship I had, every relationship I needed to keep me safe and sound gone like anchors cut off from the main ship. I have no one to call for a ride, except...

I decide there’s really no humiliating way out of this, so I send a text in hopes of a quick reply, and am rewarded with one. I somehow make my way outside, taking my heels off to make the process easier, but I still end up stumbling and almost falling down the stairs.

I wait outside, crumbling to the ground like a wilted flower. I fiddle with the folds of my dress, and soon I see your car pull into the parking lot, then I hear your footsteps crunching on the gravel as you walk towards me, until you are right next to me. I tilt my head back to look at you, neat dark brown hair and bright green eyes that are filled with so much concern I have to look away fill my head, along with the memories of hugs, interlaced hands, and quick kisses pressed to wanting lips.

 Like everything I had before, that is also gone.

“I’m sorry,” Is the only thing I can say.

You put your arms beneath me and gently lift me up, cradling me against your chest like I am a broken porcelain china cup that needs to be handled with care. “I know,” is all you say as I rest my head against your shoulder, reveling in the contact, your touch that I have missed, the steady words of someone who actually cared about me. I can’t decide which one I have needed more in these past months that I have lost myself, a hug to anchor me or words to steady me. I only know that I wish this moment could last forever.

You lower me into the passenger seat of the car, and when I don’t have the focus to buckle myself in you do it for me, then climb into the driver’s side yourself. Before you ignite the engine and leave this moment behind forever, I say “Thank you for being my Superhero.”