Promise me you won't forget all those nights we spent, with me curled up on your chest, whispering words the rest of the world would never witness leaving our lips, secrets that would always be ours and ours alone. Swear you will not purge my memories as soon as you cross the border, leaving this hell of a town behind forever. It would be woman down, sirens blazing, as you rip my heart from my chest again. Do you want that on your conscience, knowing you broke the one promise you ever truly made to me?
When I close my eyes, I can see it playing like I'm in the movie theater. Our story has always had its ups and downs, for sure, but I have never gone back on my word. I promised you that I would stay, didn't I? Didn't I take your hands, so strong and sure, into my own and say words I only save for special boys, promising that I would never take the risk to allow my heart to take that last beat prematurely? Now, look at me. Touch me. I am alive- feel my heart beating beneath my skin and bones. I'm still here. I stayed. Not just for you, but for myself. I'm doing everything I can to stay as long as possible, slashing any obstacles that do their best to make me retreat, dropping my guard for at least one second. They will not take me again. You taught me to be strong when I felt weak, bones becoming so brittle they would shatter as the snow pitter-pattered onto each infinitesimal cell. I let myself become who you wanted, picking up each worn-out fragment of who I used to be time and time again, no matter how heavy their weight became in the end.
Can't you see that these pieces don't fit? I am a million different people, smashed into one small girl. I'm the girl you see at a party, hiding in the back corner drinking vodka with a boy draped around her, so high he can't even describe the color of her eyes as they shimmer like topaz sitting in the moonlight. I am the shadow in the back of the closet, unnoticed to everyone but the ones who truly wish to look for it. Even still, I am the one you can't bear to forget as she enters the room, looking so full of strength and power she doesn't truly possess, filled with so many stories and secrets that it's a wonder she doesn't look like she will explode at any given moment. It's hard to figure out which pieces can be shown to the world. Not everyone smiles at a free-spirited girl with stars in her eyes, glistening with tears like diamonds on her cheeks. They don't understand.
As the world hit me with its worst, threatening to tear me limb from limb like a hurricane through that run-down house on the other side of town, you stayed. You were the only one who said they believed in me and meant it, picking me up from the bathroom floor at three in the morning, makeup and bile running down my face, down my shirt, and all over this mess I have seemed to make of my life. I thought that would be it, that you would finally scream and leave me- but you never did.
I know now that we don't need to say anything. We can tell what the other is thinking with a simple look, like that one night in August with the crickets singing lullabies and your hands in my hair. I remember every second of that night, and I know you do, too. I see it playing in your mind as you look me up and down with stars in your eyes brighter than the ones in this Portland, Maine sky. You are a glistening ray in this endless stretch of darkness, a reason to dry my tears in the middle of the night. I welcome you into this hell because you help to make it disappear, if only for a few fleeting moments of bliss as you pin me down and have your way with me. Somehow, you seem right at home, the gates opening wide as the demons rise to welcome you. You do not dare to let my hand leave your own, giving my palm a quick squeeze as the color drains from your typically bright face.
Don't ever lose the fire that blazes deep within you- that is what keeps you alive. This world will try to rip it out, the first chance it gets. It won the day it met me, but I'm beating it now. The warmth is finding its own way back to my soul, growing closer with each second I am by your side. It's a cold and devious world without that fire. Bones become stiff and brittle; hearts are coated in a thick sheet of ice.
My own is beginning to thaw. I can welcome people in and not hear sirens blaring, willing me to shove them away the second they start to get too close. I began to morph from the demon I hate so much to a new, glowing person I can't even begin to recognize in the mirror. She is better. She is brighter, and isn't that what anyone would want from a girl in this world?
YOU ARE READING
Rays in the Dark
Short StoryA collection of stories and poems depicting people's lives as they struggle with love, mental illnesses, and the everyday battles that life throws their way.
