“I turn and I slowly walk away and I don’t look back. It has always been a fault of mine, but it is the way I am. I never look back. Never.”

― James Frey, A Million Little Pieces

But I looked back at you, sweetheart.

I looked back at you through the rearview mirror as I drove away that day. You were already walking away, but yes, I looked back. I miss you. You’re my first thought as I wake up in the morning, and my last thought before I fall asleep is your arms around me. I’m living my life in a daydream. Some strange haze. I keep looking back. My God, I have never looked back on anyone or anything. I have left everything in my life without a second glance, and yet, I find myself looking for your face every time I go out, though I know you are far away now. Sometimes, words don’t work. Sometimes, you beg and plead and cry and question God and the universe and everything around you, and, it still doesn’t work. Sometimes, your whole world gets ripped apart. Sometimes you lose. You lose the person you love, you lose money (not that it ever mattered to me), you lose a place you thought was home, and sometimes you lose yourself to the overwhelming grief that plagues your every breath. I grieve you. I grieve losing you. But I also grieve losing myself too. I grieve feeling…secure. Secure in myself, secure in a relationship, and secure in the world that is mine now. I am angry. I think of all the hope I held in my heart. I think now of how it is utterly destroyed. To where do I go now? To whom do I run to? My lover, my sweetheart, my best friend…is lost to me. 

I am walking. I am walking, but I am looking back. I just hope that I get to a place where I can look forward again. I imagine the ocean and I breathe in rhythm with the waves. The pain washes over me like water, but I breathe. I reach for your hand as I feel the sand beneath my feet, but you are gone. I open my eyes to look for you on a foggy, starless night, and I am alone. “Please, come back to me,” I whisper. I pray to God  for relief or an answer or for something, anything. My heart breaks as I stand and listen to nothing but the silence and the waves. I walk. I walk, and I find a way to breathe. I will heal, just not today. 

Sometimes we wish for simple things (All people)

We wish for pink tablecloths. We wish for small, little homes in beautiful places, so we can put flowers on our kitchen tables. We wish for easy jobs that pay enough for us to get by. We wish for friendly neighbors. We wish for simple lives painted in pastel colors. We wish happiness, and maybe even a little less pain. We wish for someone to come home to us after work, without any stops along the way. We wish for sunshine and late evening trips to Chilis for takeout, because everything is closed right now. We wish we knew how to make margaritas, and we wish we were all natural born cooks. We wish for lives that are easy and simple and most of all beautiful. We wish we knew how to make our dreams come true. We wish for little footsteps. For children and the happiness they bring. We wish for arms to hold us at night and for kisses every morning as we head out the door. 

We wish we drank for fun, and not to ease the shutter we feel inside. We wish we never needed telephones, because the one we love is always close by. We wish life was easy and we didn’t have to cry. We wish summer and Christmas were endless and we never had to say goodbye. We wish we laughed because the joke was funny, not just so we wouldn’t cry. We wished we had a hand to hold and that all cars had a sunroof. That was a joke. ha. We wish it would all just be as easy as it is on paper, but I’m sorry, it never is. We wish distance and time would come together, but sometimes they never do.

We wish it would snow in July. We wish for the waves of a warm beach in December. We never seem to be satisfied, but at heart, we’re all wishing for the same thing: maybe happiness, and maybe a little less pain. 

The sky is getting darker and the air is getting cooler.

This may be one of the last nights I spend in my new home

I hear the train. It runs around this time every night. I love the sound

I watch the sky like its television. And i take a picture so i won’t forget

And then i take another to be sure

I pray to God. And i beg the whole universe for some answers. I beg God to make this work

The train. I love the train

I am somewhere else

I am going somewhere else

On that train

Please God take me away

Everything hurts

The train again

Take me somewhere else

Take away the pain

This apartment. So picture perfect and suited just for me. Will be empty again. 

I feel alone

My heart is in a million little pieces

I cannot breathe

I look into the other little apartments windows. People living their lives. Are you happy? Little apartment? Can you make mine happy too?