did you really think you could just put it in the safe behind the painting?

i’m stuck in a room full of half-thought thoughts; they stack up like boxes that need sorted and my room just gets smaller.

you know that feeling? being trapped by quiet? it’s not a good silence, it’s an empty kind, but one that feels distinctly solid in some way. you can’t trust it. the density weighs down on you and you can’t understand why. everywhere else you run, you’re bursting against the sky. but now, in this room, they’ve got you shut in.

i’ll list all the reasons. i’m figuring out why and how and when, so can’t you let go? girl, you’ve got to find some grey or you’ll alienate them all. this drama is tiring, and i can’t deal with the exhaustion; i’m ready to rest.

i wonder what went so wrong. we’ve all done so much damage to each other in games of unfeeling and isolation. we’re dancing around tension, doing anything we can to avoid honest conflict; in its absence, the strain festers and warps until the friction becomes too agonizing to handle. so we give in. we’re doing things we’re not supposed to; willing our sweetness to fade.

right now, i’m so far away from anything close to home, but you’ve got two, maybe three.

my whole world is in black and white; you know what i’m saying. that was one of my favorite things, when you turned ugly things into pretty words. like "grave gardens." you have this way with candy-coated heartbreak, but do you feel it? i’m wearing stitches to show what’s missing, but you? you’re jumping around so your feet won’t get burned. look how easy that makes it to escape; how convenient, then, to have a ready-to-wear apology. are you afraid to admit to it or are you just scared of being the one to lose?

loss is so natural, so common, but it scares me more than anything. when i love things, i want all of them. it's like eating ice cream; even though it makes your teeth too cold and your stomach hurt, you keep eating. it's a horrible and fantastic kind of want because you know that it’ll eventually be gone, but you keep eating because it's the only way to even taste it at all.

instead of loving you less, i’m learning to love you differently. it’s not an active love, or a love of you with me, it’s a love for the pieces i took. somedays, i’ll walk past shades of you, like someone screaming or the sidewalk to your old apartment. and i’m still crying to iron and wine, buried in my bed on cold nights. i’m trying to be calm in the wake of your happiness, but it’s hard when you look through me.

i want out of my head and into the world. i need more noise and less space or something to make my eyes start taking in the color again.