Resolve

Some days, I'm struck with an aching sadness that permeates all. It feels like the entire world is unknown to me and I am merely a foreigner. An alien in my own skin. The clothes won't fit and neither will a fake smile. So I stay inside. It's not always like that. More often than not, I'm prancing around making memories worth savoring. Pretentiousness vanishes on these days. These good days. These days where I throw open a window and hear life. But, then I remember. That summer when it went away. That summer when I felt life torn from me as I lay crumpled on the floor like filthy laundry: wet from the day and stinking from the indiscretions. Things sound differently. A bit more hollow. A thousand times I told myself the story. A thousand times it ends the same way. Somberly. The sun was bright that day but inside I was dark. I was tainted. I was without worth. Days like today, I fight that urge to stay inside. To lock the door, cover the windows and cry huddled in the corner of a bed. At this point, I know the tears are reactionary. Back then, they were survival. Some nights, I wake and stare into the blue abyss. I hear cars. I see the dark trees scrape across the stars. And I feel nothing. I hurt to feel nothing. Those moments, I am weak. I am nothing. I am but vacuity. I don't mean the freshness of open thought but the encircling void of good, the lack of all that is life. That's when I have to shut my eyes and hope for sleep, because if another minute in that state passes. . . . And I wake to the same scene. Those days aren't as often as they used to be. Time doesn't heal all wounds and rarely does darkness lighten with chronological passage. To put it lightly, it's erosion of the soul that occurs. Outside has weathered so much that the inner core is strong; it's age, it's hope, it's survival. Events such as these aren't tests, they're shit luck. So I ground myself whispering, "I'm fine", until it becomes reality. And I rise to a day which is a little less brighter than the last. I see a smile that's a little less strong than my teenage grin. I feel a piece of me lost for eternity. It will never return and I have to live with this. I have to live. I have to.