You don’t notice until it’s too late.

Where have I let myself run off to? Less than a year ago I was frantically scribbling word after word into my journal or typing away in front of my computer screen almost every day. I reflected on what life consisted of and analyzed (perhaps over-analyzed) every aspect of it. The Autumn air always reminds me of the years past and exactly how I felt during each of those. Maybe it’s because most things in my life began in the fall. I’m getting side-tracked.

Where have all of my thoughts floated away to? I feel like I don’t even know who I am anymore. It seems as if I’ve been nothing more than a walking corpse lately. I’ve been <i>asleep</i>.

I want to wake up.
I want to wake up.
I want to wake up.

I’ve seen shooting stars and shrugged them off. I’ve heard the most beautiful songs and forgotten their tune. I’ve let my better half fall to the way side. Why?

Is it because I’m happier now? Could be. It’s hard to tell anymore why I do the things I do. I used to put so much thought into every move I made. Anymore I just let the flow of things have it’s way with me. I feel so uninspired.

I just want to wake up.

Buried under this mound of schoolwork lies a poet without a pen. Drowning in this sea of forgotten friendships is a boy with nothing to say. I’m cursed with tired eyes and a disinterested brain in spite of everything going for me.

In a nutshell, I’m happy yet unaware, and that’s severely important to me. It’s as if I’m trapped in the best dream I’ve ever had and want nothing more than to escape with everything intact.

I would love to say that this new wind will be permanent, but I know better. It will last a week or two at best. And then I’ll let the clutches of monotony straighten up my shoulders and guide me down the same path I’ve been down time and time again.

I just want to wake up.

Three minutes to seven.

He sits with his face half shaded by his own profile as the sun begins to set.  Mostly, he thinks back about the passed eight and a half months that have been devoured by time.  How strange it all feels, as if he had been driving with his eyes closed.  He nearly missed it.  Curious about something his lover said the night before, he opens a letter she had written him a few days earlier.  It tells of her weightless heart and of her peaceful mind that have carried her for the past four and a half months the mouth of age has consumed.  He responds in a nearly identical format; she always thought it was cute how he did that with text messages, and snail mail, and anything else of the like.  The letter read as follows:

Dear whoever,

I want to keep this feeling forever, too.
I feel cute and relieved and also weightless, not unlike yourself.  It’s incredible.
I feel awake now.  No longer aimlessly searching for something or someone to fill this now nonexistent vacant spot in the heart.
Your way with words has always been so beautiful.  I can feel the wind’s cool grasp on my skin and the fresh air in my lungs like never before.  The sunset is a little more beautiful these days.
My heart feels as if it might burst out of my chest at any moment, for all the right reasons, too.
I am never cold in my sleep, I am never fearful in my sleep.  I am always warm and calm now.
I’ve never been one to believe in jinxes, and regardless I feel like this is too powerful to be jinxed anyhow, this is fate. We have the universe on our side.

“How could someone else make me feel this different? This right?”
I ask myself a similar question on a daily basis.  I feel…whole.
I feel lucky to have found this feeling so early on in life.  You’re right, it is one of the most beautiful things ever.
I am happier than I have ever been.  I feel certain. Finally.

I feel safe.
I feel home.

I know what you mean, it almost seems too good to be true.
I never want this to end.  I want us to have this much fun forever.  We can leave temporary excitement to the rollercoasters we ride together, okay?

I’m so glad that we both feel as if the fun will never stop.  It makes me believe that much more that it won’t. I want to stay in this amusement park with you forever, Wonderwall.

I am always searching for some way to describe this feeling I’ve got.  “Unbelievable” is the closest thing I can think of.
And even that comes up short.
I have never once been at a loss of words while trying to describe something, until now.  I think that maybe you’re right.  It just is.

It’s even more than I had read in books, it’s above and beyond anything I had ever expected.
It’s more than I’ve ever dreamed of having.  Infinitely more.

I’m glad I get to share this feeling with you and only you.
I hope that we both keep this feeling forever and ever.  To infinity and beyond.

Dear Emerald Eyes,
Thank you.
For everything.

Love,
A boy with tears in his eyes.

He sits back, revises the letter, and sends it.  How did this girl get a hold of the key to every chamber of his heart?  How did she so effortlessly pry the door to his brain open?  He has never felt a greater need to be sincere than with her.  It’s almost as if her heart is his own.  At any rate, he remains perplexed at how his life could possibly be so perfect these days.  What did he do to deserve this?  Regardless, he doesn’t complain.

648 words.

Problem solved.

He recalls the faded memories of the first few times he gave his heart away as he watches the day take its last couple of breaths.  Girls had come and gone with every summer, but one of them entered the traces of his life over and over.  He went out with girls when he was younger and had often pondered when exactly he would find a girl he didn’t have to settle for–and then he saw her for the first time.  Just thinking about it he can still feel her cold hands against his inside of his hoodie pockets as she stood behind him, the brisk autumn air embracing their veins.  He can still feel her warm breath on his neck.  He can still see her glowing under the street lamps in that schoolyard–her vibrant pink and blonde hair, her worn red hoodie, and the yellow shirt that peered between either side of the zipper.  He can even still see her chipped red fingernail polish. It’s uncanny how real all of it seems.  He can practically feel the soft skin of her cheek as it brushes against his.  He can practically taste the lips that would one day press against his own.  It was on that night that he knew deep down she was the only woman for him.

206 words.

Skinned elbows.

And like that, his positivity has become a force to be reckoned with.  After nearly twenty-four solid hours of harsh rain pouring down over his parade, his sunshines peeks through the clouds and warms his skin just as it has done so very many times before.  He remembers some things he had taught himself not long ago.  “Most everything can be narrowed down into two black and white categories.”  How could he have forgotten a concept so simple?  If only he could remember to keep his tired eyes peeled more often than not, maybe that incosistent pressure would stop coming back for more.  His scars would heal in no time if he would just bandage them and care for them to the extent that he cares for his better half.  Perhaps speculation and guidance are more beneficial to both parties than just attempting to fight her petty battles for her.  Everyone yearns to nurture and pines to be nurtured.  Selfishness now may be a better bet than ever before.  It’s when pivotal moments like these are overlooked that things begin to fall apart.

183 words.

The wind in your hair.

Where is this weight in his heart coming from?  He smiles at the glow of life’s eyes more often than not, but ever present is the growing pressure on his chest.  Every day he awakes and walks the walk he wants to walk and talks the talk he wants to talk, yet he finds himself staring at the flesh of his shortcomings.  A constant bellowing from the broken hearts of his kinsmen is no help.  His bland routine is nothing to write home about, and he yearns for the grasp of education that grows ever closer.  Lately, he feels as broken as he is whole.  But why?  He kicks himself.  “Why?” will always be an irrelevant question–how many times does he have to tell himself?  He puts the pen down and walks away, cutting through the cool breeze as it weaves its way through traffic.  His heart will rest easy another day, and his peace of mind will greet him in good time.  Now if he can just get across the street alive.

173 words.

Here’s where I disappear.

It’s tough for him to wrap his brain around why exactly people react the way they do about things.  A small spark to one seems like an enormous explosion to another.  He digs deep within himself to try and understand this phenomenon, yet only finds that he has no desire to understand it.  What difference does it make anyhow?  There is very little he could do to change the thought processes of other regardless.  On the other hand, however, he feels dumbfounded.  He is frustrated to the core with why exactly others let the slightest ticks get the best of them.  Despite all of this, he does, in fact, feel better about himself for realizing this flaw in humanity at such a young age.  Perhaps this observation will allow him to prevent himself from falling into the same trap.

140 words.

The hand that held me down.

More often than not, the hands around his throat are his very own.  Calloused, worn, and eager to wrap their crooked fingers around the little bit of courage he can even muster.  Whether or not he’ll ever admit it to the slaves that roam the earth around him, he is afraid.  He’s absolutely terrified of himself and just about everything around him.  The eyes of the passers by shake his interior like tectonic plates clashing into one another…grinding against one another.  The deadly turbine of competition in a capitalist nation makes him want to cower in a corner.  It seems as if failure awaits his embrace around every street corner, within every shadow, behind every door, beneath every set of cotton sheets.  He is consumed by this perpetual fear of…everything.  A mask of certainty and blatant arrogance are his only shelter from his own tears.

He is incomplete.

He longs for her shoulders to rest his weary head on.  He longs for her waist to wrap his tired arms around.  He longs for her lips to brush against his.  He longs for her brain to lend his comforting thoughts.  He longs for her fingertips to graze his salt stained cheeks.

Relentless are these feelings of unrest.
Yet, relentless is his beating heart.

213 words.

I’m not a ladies man, I’m a landmine.

These days are filled with uncertainty.  One minute he’s jerked kicking and screaming into a sea of silence and boredom, filled with anger and no way to express it, the next he’s pulled the opposite direction into a vigilant world of confrontation and toe-stepping. Is there no happy medium? Is there any escape other than the restless nights he spends dreaming about the silent seas and vigilant worlds that consume his days? There is nothing. There is everything to fight his feelings.  There is everything to restore his hope, but nothing to confirm either of them.  Everything is little more than a temporary restraint on his overflowing criticism of everything around him. Yet, the very second he is secluded with his thoughts, the water rushes in once again.

127 words.

Rockets Fall.

Every second of “me” time he finds gets lost within the glow of his computer screen.  Or something.  He has found that he is not the social butterfly he once was, and this unnerves him the slightest bit. Yet, even so, he appreciates every second he has alone.  Perhaps not enough though.  Perhaps he should be doing a bit more fulfilling things on his own time.

And off he goes, outward into oblivion.  Outward into the bright shining lights of the city…to waste away with the rest of those dead people.

91 words.

The buzzer screams, half-time begins.

Click. Click. Click.  He continues hammering away, sculpting what he has been taught to know as his life.  As of late, sleep has come easy and with it so has marginal peace of mind.  His broken heart has glued itself back together with the help of a passing princess.  Perhaps she is here to stay, but only time can say one way or another.  He  lost his footing and fallen head over heels for the one he has watched for years.  He has given his heart to the girl he thought he’d never have, the girl who tore his heart apart time and time again.  What happens next?  His hand-crafted gestures of love can’t be all that it takes forever…can it?  The workshop in his mind has a million new sales propositions left, but what if he runs out?  Does the story end?

He crosses his fingers.