this is what falling in love feels like

haunted

The air is a still silent in the darkness; particles are only moving to exit and re-enter her cracked, parted lips. Every movement of the sky becomes a mirror to the turmoil below, to the turmoil inside her heart. Clouds cover the open blue like a deepened grey duvet. Lightning strikes the earth in its beautifully desired façade. It strikes the earth as he had struck her in his beautifully desired lies. The sky collapses under the lightning, falling into a breaking sound. Thunder shatters into echoes of his voice in her head like an old favorite song as she crumbles. Her heart screams for the memories to go away as one final clap of thunder occurs before tears begin to roll down her cheeks and rain trickles down her window.

Loneliness is her only companion as she drives down the slippery road to nowhere. She could still hear his words, feel his warmth, see his intoxicating smile. Her eyes blink in tired sadness, tears sliding down at the chance. Her hand returns to the wood of the steering wheel, controlling the car as she could never control herself around him. Even now, with only his memory present, she falls victim to her ultimate affliction of being completely and overwhelmingly infatuated with him.

Even in her demolished state, she aches for him with everything inside of her. She lusts for his words, longs for his presence, craves for his touch, yearns for his lips to meet hers once more. She can feel every memory, every moment ever shared: his thumb rubbing against the back of her hand as they walk side-by-side towards their known and unknown destination; his laughter ringing in the air like church bells on a sunday morning over something she must have said; a warmth of comfort, desire, infatuation, hope, love spreading through every inch of her body, from her fingertips to her toes, emerging from the epicenter at which his lips met hers.

Heartbreak poisons her blood, overwhelming every vein until she finally could take it no longer. Her hands slam against the wood she was grasping in a desperate scream of pure anguish.

"Why?" she cries from the epitome of her soul. Her palms repeatedly slam on the wheel, and her breathing increases drastically as she loses control in his name once more, overwhelmed by dreams, imaginations, memories of everything him.

"I loved you," her cries turn to whispers as her little strength from fury dies out. She shakes her head. "I love you," her heart corrects.

Everything in the rear-view mirror grows smaller with each moving inch, yet he flourishes in her mind with each passing moment. No amount of anything can distract her mind from him, and honestly, she does not want to be distracted. He is pain, and he is love. He is harmful, and he is home. He is an enemy, and he is a protector. She is his, and he will never be hers.

"You said you would never leave. You promised." Her voice is barely audible, the aching words sounding pitiful.

What is she to do? How is she to think? What is she to feel? How is she to move forward? Heartbreak seems to be her only answer. It burns in her chest, suffocating her lungs, setting fire to her soul, scorching her sanity. She becomes lost in the heartbreak like she was lost in her mind until he found her; sinking within where she can never be found, she loses to the fight within her.

The car drifts into the familiar place, where tread marks of countless visits lie. The roaring engine drifts off into a peaceful sleep as she steps into the rain. The rain falls in a pour, soaking through her very bones. She is wet and cold and sad and empty, so the rain hardly bothers her. Her tears fall faster, and her feet begin to lift higher, wider, stretching in a manner as if challenging her own thoughts to a race. Patted footsteps sound against graveled puddles, creating a minuscule melody for the storming chorus. Mud splashes at the contact of Converse on the scrambled rocks, attempts to slide her footing from her as she runs. Then, her eyes catch sight of her desired destination: a small breaking through the trees.

The cries rising in her throat begin to feel like screams as she steps off the gravel into the muddy refuge. Just before she falls to her knees in utter despair, she sees something, or rather, someone. A figure stands there before her, cloaked in the darkness of the rain. His hair is matted and stuck to his forehead with dew; his hands are shoved into the pockets of his jeans now three shades darker with dampness; his shoulders are hunched underneath a grey shirt and a black zipper hoodie with strings uneven. She can barely see his face, but her heart immediately recognizes him.

He looks up at her, having known immediately where she would be going the minute she decided to try and escape the world. Their eyes lock. Unable to move from the others' gazing grasp, they stand a still silent in the falling rain. Neither know what is now to happen; neither cares. All that matters he is before her, and she stands in front of him.