screamingmicrowave

[screamingmicrowave]

heye every one.

[screamingmicrowave]

When he enters the hall, everything lies so still he feels out of place. "It's weird, how you can enter a place you felt like home and suddenly find in yourself a stranger," he thinks. And it is. But it's also a relief sometimes, to know that you have finally left something behind.

He walks, he goes through every corridor, up the stairs, into a room he used to think of as his. Every wall is blank now. They didn't used to be, he'd put everything he found on the walls, as if by covering them he could cover his own heart. But cover it from what, the world? He knows now, you can only escape the world so long. After a while, reality is undeniable and the pain of having believed yourself free, way worse than the one of being trapped. So he fled. As painful as it is, as much as he's tried to avoid thinking of it for years, he run away. Now he knows that's the truth.

And he knows the boy he was would have never run away. The boy he'd been, a boy that's still, partly, inside of him, would have stayed, and drowned, and maybe even died, because he'd thought of running away as something shameful. The boy he was would have fought to live, but you can't keep fighting forever. A tear escapes his eyes. Not, as it could have been, for the life he could have lived but hadn't, nor for the hardships he's had to overcome in his short life. It's neither of those, not really, what breaks his barriers and sends a rush of emotion through all his body. He sheds a tear for the boy he was, for the pain that this kid (a kid he wouldn't even recognise anymore, a kid who wouldn't have liked him if they ever met) went through, for the knowledge that the past is immovable and no matter what he ever does, he will never be able to save that kid.

He turns away. It's probably the last time he will ever enter this room. The last time he will ever walk across this hall. He doesn't plan on coming to this street ever again. And then, through the tears, he smiles. Not because he's happy, he isn't yet, that will come later, at the warmth of his home. No, not because of any momentary happiness, but because of the relief of knowing, that even through hell, the kid survives. Even after entering his childhood house again, he keeps his head up. Because the kid, who during so many years wanted to die, realizes that he wants to live again.

[screamingmicrowave]

The morning after, the birds chirp while you walk home. The next day the wind blows their hair away from their face, making a mess of their bangs, a beautiful one. Weeks later, you burst laughing about a joke so bad that no one will get why it seemed funny when you tell them the story. After some months, they will give you flowers they picked on their way to you, flowers you will keep in a book, trying to stop them from rotting, because they will recall a moment you never wish to forget. You will cherish these memories, because they make who you both are as a pair, and because in taking a part in said pair you have also shaped yourself. These memories will seem crucial, unforgettable, and you'll want them to be. Because missing them would be missing youself.

But time passes, and in years, you'll have forgotten this. Not all at once, not everything, but little by little it will go away. You won't have time to be scared about losing yourself because you won't even realize you can't recall every detail anymore. And then the memories will be buried, remaining in the back of your mind forever, less defined with each passing day no matter how essential they once seemed.

And if you knew you were going to forget them, you wouldn't let yourself forget. Maybe that's why you open that specific book some morning; that's why when you overhear some kids talking in the bus, telling that particular joke, you feel whole again, made anew; maybe that's why when you come across a boy with bangs, combed that particular way, you feel happy for a moment, without even realizing it, or why. Because no matter how deep, they're still in you. They're still you.

[screamingmicrowave]

I grieve every life i could have lived, but won't. Not because I hate the one I have, but because it seems unfair to have to face that many possibilities with so little time.

[screamingmicrowave]

The bird flies away. You stare at it in the distance, looking up at the sky. You don't want to let it go, but it has to, needs to part. You look at it with awe, impressed with how beautiful its wings are, horrified when the thought appears that if you could just clip them, tie them, cut them, even, it wouldn't be able to go away.

You let it fly away and as the distance between you grows, you stay still. You wonder what life would be if it never had to leave, if you could always be together, and you wonder if it wonders too. You wonder now as it parts if you will be wondering forever, you think that you will. What ifs have always been too appealing to you, too beautiful a concept to let go, too fragile not to pay them any mind.

One day, you hope, you will look at the sky and remember, you won't yearn, or cry, or scream because life is unfair and it took what was yours. One day the sky will only show you what was, and not what could have been. You await for that day to come.