Please Don't Remember

The darkness keeps a lot of things hidden. It's easy to fade away into and hide in. Darkness they say fades, but I don't want it to. If it fades then who I am is shown. I'm not allowed to be a mystery anymore, I'm forced to stand up and say that I can be weak when I don't know how to be.

I work in darkness. I live in it. I relish it and no matter how much the light draws near I will always draw further back into my home of the night. I will fight away all of the feelings and all the tears that I want to cry for you. I don't want to realize that with you here, the darkness is fading.

I've been alone inside and I'm okay with that. I didn't need someone to unlock this door, this cage that holds my heart. I was okay with being angry and I was okay with not caring. I'd like to say that you have none of me. I'd like to say many things. Like your light doesn't touch me. Like your smile doesn't affect me. Like there's nothing here to salvage.

A better me is you. That's confusing I know. It's confusing because I don't know why I'm here and I don't know why I insist on being near you. I don't know why it's me that must watch over you. I will swoop down into your light to make sure that it survives. I will stop you from making mistakes that will make you fade away. I am strong in that way. I'm good at fighting off the bad that comes out at night. I thrive on that.

You may think me mystical and dangerous, but I'm only hiding away. It's better to solve the problems the night brings than try to solve the problems with myself.

So when I stay out late, embrace the darkness and the night, and come back not myself, it's me realizing that the cloak of the night is fading. I'm realizing that this is real and going to stay. I've been forced to see in the light.

My soul cries, but that's not because it's sad. It's because it sees hope again.

I want to say don't forget me. I want to say it and mean it, but please when you decide to go I want you to never forget what I have never told you. I want you to remember that you've made me fight myself. You've made me believe in something I can't remember ever even knowing about. I want you to remember these things...I want you to know them without me saying them aloud.

Do that thing you're so good at. Read me like an open book. Tell me my own words because they'll never be said aloud, except maybe in this darkness where they will fade away where everything eventually fades away because it can't be seen. If it's not seen it not real.

There's too many things inside that you're taking over. I'm fragmented and I bet you don't even know you hold the most important pieces of me already.

Just never remember these words. Please...never remember these words. Don't wake from your dream and realize it's me that watches you sleep. I couldn't handle it if you knew that I can't sleep because my thoughts are only to be with you.


****

Damaged Too (A response to Please Don't Remember)

I'm going under this spell. Actually, I think I've been under it for a while now, I just didn't know what it was. There was always this feeling in the pit of my stomach that came whenever I saw you, thought of you, felt you near. It was this bomb in the center of me that was exploding my insides.

I think you're perfect by nature. Perfect even though you think yourself damaged. I know you stay away on purpose and I don't think you know how you've betrayed me. You've kept your loyalty and you've kept your promises but there's this truth that you've tried to get me to forget. I won't say the word?it's not mine to say.

Don't think that you can't change and don't think that you will change me, make me bad, make me evil. I'm damaged too. I've grown up not knowing anything except that there was a dream out there that called my name. It called me out of the place that was my prison.

I'd like to do the same for you. I'd like to call you out of the places you hide, but I don't know how. I think you've chased all the sanity I had left. I thought I knew things. I thought I knew everything.

You told me I was wrong and you were right. I know nothing. I don't even know what this feeling, this bomb inside is. I know it's growing and I don't ever think it will go away.

You hide yourself in the darkness and you don't think I know why. I hide away too. I hide in the light. Maybe if it shines too brightly it will blind people to what is really there. It will blind them to my confusion and it will blind them to my fear. I know that it's blinded you. The light is all you can see, but the darkness is all I know.

Pretending was always a good thing to play while I was young and lost. Pretend to be perfect. Pretend to be happy. Pretend to be the same. Pretend to be anything but me. They told me to put on a smile and hold my head up high, but never high enough to catch my breath.

You want the light I have? Is that why you watch me now? Do you want to stand there and take what isn't even mine? I'll give it to you. I don't know why, but I'll give you anything.

It's hard not understanding. It's hard not being experienced enough to understand. I know how to do things?incredible things. I know about things most people don't even know exist?yet I know nothing.

We need a turning point. We need that moment from the Fairy Tales when the Prince turns to the Princess and they know that their lives will be the happily ever after they both seek. We need that so that this confusion within me disappears into the blue sky and white clouds of the perfect day and perfect life.

Do you know that I've wished for a Fairy Tale my entire life? Do you know that my favorite Fairy Tale is Beauty and The Beast and in it I play the part of the Beast?

I know that you linger in my doorway. You stay there hoping that the whispers you tell me aren't heard. I just wish I understood.

Either make this bomb inside me go away or tell me how to have peace. Do you know peace? Do you think I'm peace?

You know I lie inside myself for hours. I stay in this mind of mine and get lost. When you pull me out I smile brightly because I have to hide the thoughts that plague me. All these thoughts and all these feelings and all these things I don't understand.

When I have the knowledge, when I know myself, one day I'm going to reach out my hand to you as you stand over me. I will reach out to you and pull you to me in the dark. It'll be our common ground. We'll be equals there because it's the place where we both dwell.

Until then you can stand in the darkness thinking you're alone, but there's so many things there that you can't see; like me.



****

Chaotic Harmony

They danced with each other. Each move was calculated and in time with the beat that only existed between them. They'd be close then fall apart. One would fall and the other would catch her right before the fallen would go fully under.

Ask anyone around them if they were different and they'd tell you it was all the same. There was the banter. There was the witty conversation. There was everything that had been allowed to form. It was part of the dance.

Get closer. Fall apart. Move in the shadow of another. Move away from the shadow. Always they moved together. It was a chaotic harmony.

Best friends. That could be a term to describe them. Partners in the night. That would work as well. Together separately. That's probably the best to describe it.

They knew the truth but they were good liars. Unfortunately, one of them missed a step. She forgot to pull away when the dance demanded it. An offer had been made. A promise to hold on and never let go.

This caused them both to stumble. Their chaotic harmony had turned into only chaos. The harmony vanished into the brightness of the truth. The dance they both knew was forgotten. Instead of together separately they became only separate. They fell and on the way down there was no one left to grab them before they went under.

Then if anyone asked those around them if something had changed, the answer would be that something had but no one knew what. The banter was gone. The witty conversations had ceased to exist and were replaced with pleasantries: terrible pleasantries that meant nothing.

It was 'how are you,' 'how is this,' 'how is that,' 'have a good day,' 'have a good night', nothing meant anything. The questions were asked but the answers never heard.

Eventually the questions wouldn't even be heard. Their fall would be complete. They'd move completely away from each other and only meet on the direst of circumstances.

It was like they didn't even remember each other. Every time their paths crossed it was like meeting each other again for the first time. Everything they had known was forgotten. It was too hard to remember.

Then, like before, a promise was made. "I believe in you," It was whispered from above. "I believe in you."

The circumstances that drew out the words were unimportant. It was the response that mattered. "I'm not sleeping."

A hand was offered and taken. "All I wanted to say was that I loved you. I was afraid and hidden too well inside of myself."

"I've been holding my last breath. I was thinking of you, hoping that something would eventually lead you here."

"You can't go away now."

"I can't hold on forever."

"But you can hold on now."

"Does that mean you're trying to catch me before I fall?"

"I can only hope that I could stop the pain if I will it away."

"And your will is strong. You are strong."

"No. I'm weak. I'm only strong with you."

"Don't tell me I saved you from the dark."

"No. You woke me back up to life."

"And I guess you're trying to return the favor?"

"I'm not letting go."

Lips met then. The passion was there but it was faint, covered up by promises and hopes for the future, covered up by the need of affirmation that this wasn't happening too late.

"Then I won't let go either."

The End.