it's not me that you love
"I will teach you how to breathe," you whispered, "And then I will take it away. I'll show you how to fly and then I'll break your ivory wings."
That was the last time I saw you, in a dream, peering between the bars of my rusted bird cage. I wondered, long after you left, if you'd remember me there some day, and how I used to sing for you.
Maybe you trapped me there knowing I could fly. Were you jealous that I could taste the atmosphere, that I had followed corn field lines across the country and found myself in a city made of ivy and sunflower roads? Maybe this was how you wanted to keep me, yours, a memory locked in a metal box.
But I didn't believe any of this. These were the lies that I told myself to fill the silence, to keep the truth far away. If I flew away from here, if I escaped these chains, it would only be in hopes of chasing lies. I would fade into dreams and lose myself to a place where the truth could be tamed.
That was where my story began, at the end of you.
My hands shook as I slammed the diary shut. Rain streaked down the dirty window pane and I wondered if maybe if that was how this place had looked to you every day.
I hated her for doing this to you, I hated that she made you run away. I hated that this tiny book was all that remained of you. It was just the echo of you, abandoned under the mattress of a bed you'd long left behind.
I listened for the sound of footsteps and then slipped the last peice of you in my bag. With one last glance, I saw the tiny glass elephant she had given you two Christmases ago. You'd put it at the front of your collection where it would catch light and cast rainbows on the paisley papered walls. Now it sat dusty, catching nothing in the faded light.
I opened the window and threw it, hoping it would find a rock and smash into a million glittering peices, scattered by the wind and caught in rivers of rain. If you ever came back, I didn't want you to find the memory of someone who had forgotten you.
That was the last time I saw you, in a dream, peering between the bars of my rusted bird cage. I wondered, long after you left, if you'd remember me there some day, and how I used to sing for you.
Maybe you trapped me there knowing I could fly. Were you jealous that I could taste the atmosphere, that I had followed corn field lines across the country and found myself in a city made of ivy and sunflower roads? Maybe this was how you wanted to keep me, yours, a memory locked in a metal box.
But I didn't believe any of this. These were the lies that I told myself to fill the silence, to keep the truth far away. If I flew away from here, if I escaped these chains, it would only be in hopes of chasing lies. I would fade into dreams and lose myself to a place where the truth could be tamed.
That was where my story began, at the end of you.
My hands shook as I slammed the diary shut. Rain streaked down the dirty window pane and I wondered if maybe if that was how this place had looked to you every day.
I hated her for doing this to you, I hated that she made you run away. I hated that this tiny book was all that remained of you. It was just the echo of you, abandoned under the mattress of a bed you'd long left behind.
I listened for the sound of footsteps and then slipped the last peice of you in my bag. With one last glance, I saw the tiny glass elephant she had given you two Christmases ago. You'd put it at the front of your collection where it would catch light and cast rainbows on the paisley papered walls. Now it sat dusty, catching nothing in the faded light.
I opened the window and threw it, hoping it would find a rock and smash into a million glittering peices, scattered by the wind and caught in rivers of rain. If you ever came back, I didn't want you to find the memory of someone who had forgotten you.