triangle rooftops

I used to live for everything; for the naked trees in the autumn, for the smell of hope in the spring. Every time that smell came I would breathe deeper. I would look out of my window at night and see the city lights gleaming up at me, they screamed, ‘you can have this, you can have all of this’. My youth was enveloped in faith and ambition. Faith dictated my every move. Faith in the table that would hold my drink. Faith in the bath that would get me clean. Faith in my heart that would guide me. Faith in myself to get to the lights. Myself? Myself is conquered in question marks and lists.

Now loneliness dictates my every move. It shoves me into dark places and binds me to things that my mind cannot commit. I am swarmed by darkness and acres and acres of hope that cannot be tended to or sown. Every ounce of me has abandoned myself and I cannot retrieve it.

I reminisce over pages and pages of me and there is no middle ground. I was young and I was free. I was nineteen and I was lost. I am nineteen and completely tattered. I look back on these pages and I see images of flowers with three petals and houses with four windows and triangle rooftops. I see people with bright pink skin and everything in 2-D. Then I look back on these pages and see hearts with your name scrawled across them. I see paragraphs and books dedicated to you. I see everything that you ever said to me. I see all of my faith scribbled in you.

Now when I look out of my window, the lights glare at me, they scream, ‘YOU LOST HIM, YOU LOST YOU!’ And when the spring comes and I breathe deeper, every cell in my body becomes decimated by your scent, every organ rots remembering you. In the autumn when the trees are free and naked and cold, my bones shake without you to cover them.