Shut Up and Listen

Labyrinth

Remember when we used to play all day, letting our imagination ship us off into a new world? Remember when you were a pirate and it was your job to keep the princess safe? Remember when boys had cooties and girls were... disgusting? Love was such an innocent concept made up of movies and fairy tales. Love was almost as crazy as the things we made up as we played make believe. It was the idea that it could last forever that kept us waiting, hoping. The idea that one day someone would hand us their heart and steal ours... that idea kept us hoping, but then we grew up and realized Disney lied to us. Love became a labyrinth made up of twists and turns, dead ends at almost every corner. So because we were naiive and young, we stepped into its confusion and tried to make out the blurring lines and liquid feel, but for some reason we just couldn't grasp it. We all met each other at a dead end, too tired to realize it wasn't the finish line. But there were those of us still dragging our feel, our hearts pulling us the way kids did to daddy when we thought the boogie man was lurking under our bed. We were the outcast. We were the line of broken hearts looking for someone who had glue to put the pieces back together. While the rest of the world slept, we continued the game, hoping to find an extra life or bonus points. But we never did.

I was twelve when I decided to play not knowing the danger of it all. Every person I passed was a ghost, shifting in different directions. They all told me it was a test, but how could I have tested if I hadn't even studied. So I picked up a pen and began writing on the walls everything I knew about love. The pen bled through the walls, disappearing through its abyss. I grew angry as I scribbled nonsense, letters shifting into characters, lines bending into each other creating a language I couldn't understand. I knew nothing. My thoughts were still filled with childish wonders and curiosity. I was an infant being pushed to walk even though I couldn't talk. I was a seed in a flower bed, still trying to grow, but I chose the harder road. I gave my heart to someone else expecting them to take care of it, but so easily they let it fall into a blazing fire, crushing it into ash. So I picked up the pieces as my body grew limb and transparent. I followed the line of dying shadows and sewed my heart back together. Although it takes time to put back together, one pull on the string would make me start all over. The longer I stayed, the more I became a labyrinth. Every person who loved me had to roam around a network of irregular passages just to find my heart. So they turned back half way, scared they'd get trapped. Love labyrinth is a difficult maze made for those who never give up but they did. They gave up because my heart was too far out of reach and just like that, they became walking ghosts trapped outside my heart.