Divided Unity

Paradisal Relapse

If no one makes it out alive in Paradise and that's where you aim to be, does that imply that you'd fully moved on by the time you get there?

*****

I can't tell what's more unhealthy at this point.

Prolonging that awful, dreaded silence...

Or pretend there's someone talking back?

Who can I hire to fill that role but myself,

How well would that end when all I feel for myself is buried self hatred?

It hurts to pretend I'm fine.

More than ever I wish to go back -

To a New Year's Eve, an even darker time.

Maybe it hurts to be bound here.

Maybe I lied to myself for those binding reasons.

Maybe I don't really know myself anymore.

Maybe I really was too dependent.

If you're the one that self destructs on things that are going well, what does that make me?

I must be the bomb.

And your tears must be napalmic.

Setting me up to burst and leave nothing in my wake.

You know what's really strange?

I can remember everything now.

Every little detail and unfinished sentence, whether by glitch or by teary voices.

Whether by a turned on light and a shut off computer, or an opening door in Petoskey.

I remember sneaking a screenshot of you there.

Or maybe it was more like ten.

It was worth it for those moments -

You know I wish they'd never end.

This kind of silence hurts.

And in it I have no reprieve.

Even advice and reassurance have no place in my ears now.

They pack their words and leave.

But you know what stings the most in my mind?

The number of times I've been willing, for you, to run.

Now get this - that number's the same, because I'm still on that number.

Even now, I have my bags - and that number of times is one.