trails

Warm water runs down my face, my arms, my legs. I try to imagine all my thoughts running down the drain with it, erasing everything I’ve let out over the past few days. I want to undo, I want to regret them, but I can’t.

Do you remember the soft summer wrap around us, its air breathing down our necks as we walked together through the downtown lights and nothing mattered except the night we were in? How easy it would have been to speak freely, but somehow we were muted by our fears and pride. I spoke of the books I read with great passion, and the places I wanted to go making loud plans, I held my head high and pretended to be strong but when I closed the door behind me night after night I’d still end up on the floor of my bedroom, the same silent tears lulling me to sleep. That’s my constant.

Someone should have come to get you, I hear her say and these words grow ever louder as I try to find out how this should have ended. I try to imagine what that would look like, I try to figure out why that never seemed like an option to me. I was stuck in a nightmare, and I didn’t even know it wasn’t supposed to be like that. Not until she said those words out loud, and now all I can do is wonder why she didn’t. Why no one came to get me. Those days came and went, and taught me something I want to unlearn.

I’ve tried to tell you everything I know, but I guess the words come out wrong. Or maybe there are no right words for this, and we both know it. So let’s sit quietly for a few moments and imagine a place where none of this ever happened. Let’s rewind, and pretend like we don’t exist, we can erase all the meaningless nonsense we’ve discussed, and all the meaningful mutters of truth in between, let’s remove the bouts of anger and frustration, while we forget the short moments of sincerity we’ve shared. Then I walk backwards out your door, and down the hallway, the elevator doors open and I step inside, when they close I was never here.