Be it DNA, Be it memories, Or little parts of the soul.
What is left over in a place we no longer go?
Growing up with the trees around you makes you one of them. But what happens when you leave that shade they’ve always swaddled you in?
Does a tree in a forest still grow if you’re not there to witness it? Does a tree hold the same memories of you that you do for it?
How many trunks I’ve slid my palm over remember the feel of my skin? How many branches I look up into remember me sitting in them?
I’ll never feel those trunks again but I can still remember How the roughness of the bark felt beneath my smaller fingers
As my fingers lengthened like the tiny branches of those trees, I wondered if those trees had thought about and also longed for me.
And though I know I’ll never reclaim the pieces that I’ve left, I take comfort in the thought that there are traces of me among them yet.
She sat there in the corner every afternoon. While the rest of the world carried on its necessary functions, she simply stilled and silenced herself. She wasn’t waiting for anything. She wasn’t hoping to share her thoughts or planning some grand scheme to save the world. She simply watched.
She learned about life from that corner. Occasionally she’d turn her attention to a book when the chaos around her seemed to dull and her agitation had nowhere else to settle itself.
She learned about those around her. She learned about their fears, their biases, their habits, their loves - she learned about their contradictions and their thoughts. She saw stark contrasts between lovers and striking similarities between enemies. She saw the way others looked at each other and how they looked at her. She could read their opinions in their eyes and in the way they held their bodies. She could see the indignation of someone facing their postponed responsibilities as if the entitlement would last forever and the relief in the eyes of those who finally accomplished their tasks.
It was there, in that corner, where she grew up. Barely noticed by anyone, while she noticed all. She needn’t engage the din to understand it. She worried she’d lose herself in the noise if she tried. It was much safer to observe from afar.
It was there, one afternoon, when forced from her reverie, that he told her.
“You know, I always take comfort in your silence. Its because of your silence that I know you won’t cause me problems.”
To this, she broke from her trance and stared unseeingly up at her father. The silence had always been for herself; she hated how he somehow made it his own.
She smiled with a mixture of deviousness and coquettishness, a kind of sarcastic sneer made more innocent by the vacant intention-less eyes she showed to him.
And in that moment she knew that whether she were silent or screaming he still wouldn’t hear her.
It was in that moment that she decided to put all she had learned to good use.
She’s a little bit of everyone that she’s ever met The funny thing is, she’s met no one like her yet. Sometimes she cannot fathom the pieces of herself All unique and scattered like forgotten books upon a shelf.
She’s always longed for someone whose pieces matched her own It took her some time to realize that her mindset was all wrong.
Instead of searching for pieces that were the same as hers The pieces that she needed were those she’d yet procure.
And so she set about her life on a new uncertain path. With a goal to look for uniqueness in everyone she passed
Although the path was scary and the mosaics were all new She finally grew to realize that uniqueness is what makes you, you.
I'm a different person now I feel like all I feel is down
I'm oppressing my expressions to minimize my indisgressions and avoid your aggression
I can't feel I feel too much I feel like your going for blood You won
I'm exhausted I'm tired of the game, it’s always the same, my mind is in flames, my life without aim. I’m walking in a shadow and my shadow’s ashamed.
I've changed. I'm different.
I did it for me. Subliminally for you. You knew it too. You know what I’ve been through, how my own hell ensued
I've changed I'm different
I thought it was for the best I thought I had done it, I thought I passed the test.
What I didn't know is - it's impossible, the test never completed. You're never satisfied, my demons never defeated. My confidence is fleeting, my heart retreating, repleted. My mind suffocating and my self worth maltreated.
I've changed I'm different
I'm choking, I'm through I can't deal, I'm different. Because I loved you.
Maybe someday when the sky finally brings you the horizon and you hold it in your hands studying the mystifying blues and purples and yellows and pinks, you'll see that my heart is swirling in its depths, drowning in things that were attained and forgotten, beaten and bloody, and in that moment you'll remember the girl who was, and the daughter you lost.
(An excerpt of a longer novel in progress)
And there it was - on an old beaten path through thickly grown and long dead weeds - that I tried to save myself.
I knew the words by heart. I knew it could only work among the sighs of ancient pines and cricket cries.
And so I recited the words that had always worked before, the words that could always bring me back to the surface. As the air thickened and grew heavy with unspent magic, I lifted my head, opened my eyes and saw what I had summoned. I saw what could be. And I watched it dissipate before me.
Much like the peace it granted, it could never last for long.
