All Your Little Pieces

I feel like I'm naked in front of a crowd. The spotlight's bright and the audience becomes a sea of white until I can catch a reflection of myself right inside the center of your eyes. Every word I choose is a monstrous internal struggle, desperate to find all the right words to say because I need to impress you, all of you. It's so revealing to be here, trying to tell you everything I've wanted to say and I can't find the courage to do so. And I don't know who I'm writing this for: maybe for you, maybe more for me. Maybe for both of us. Maybe this moment is all we'll ever have together.

I feel the light attach itself to me the way it can to a beautiful woman, striking my blue eyes and swallowing up my every curve and all of this somehow makes me feel alive again. I wish I could feel you looking at me now, memorizing where my tattoos lie across my lower back and thinking about how well we'd fit together waiting for the morning light to fall through the open bedroom window and discover us tangled up in one another. I can see you through the light even though you don't see me at all, and your shirt is black, buttoned all the way down with the top two buttons already undone. It is tight around your arms, and I walk towards you and unbutton you one by one, slipping my arms around your waist as I pull you close to feel every breath you take.

I am standing miles away from wherever you are. I take these steps to you one at a time as everyone steals a laugh but it's the very best I can do. I wish I could take this in stride but there's something about you that makes this harder to take. You could be beside me now, or just a few feet out of view in the corner of my right eye, and I fear I would still remain standing miles away from wherever you are.

These words are my diary and no matter how perfectly I choose them, you'll take every word I say and every word I don't say and turn them into whatever you want them to be. Or maybe you'd just leave my words there to fall silently upon the wood-paneled walls. I can't make you who I want you to be to me and I wonder what it's like to try to climb the walls. I think my voice sounds to you like a strangers while I could pick your sometimes shy "hello" out of a dense crowd. There's so much of this that I can no longer control, my control slipping away like a raindrop slides down a windowpane. And my emotions of everything I'm trying to say get lost along the way, and nothing feels familiar to me anymore.

I know what to say but I can't seem to find the right place to begin. I'm scared to know that you'd just look right through me, leaving me unfulfilled and I'm not sure I'm strong enough to break through the letdown. I think about turning down all the lights and letting you paint my name on the walls through the darkness. It's colder in the darkness, and I'm not so sure how I feel about you now. But I know I'm not over everything we never were.

If I close my eyes, I can see the flashing carnival lights, and it's colder than it ought to be in mid-July. No one ever loved the ocean as much as I did until I met you. You were the first person who ever knew I was scared of Ferris wheels. I let you lead me on one as we rode it all the way to the top and watched the ocean waves fall against themselves, softly into the shore. The sun faded from orange to purple and I never let go of your hand. All your little pieces are gathered up inside my mind as I'm still trying to learn all your beautiful ways and memorize how the morning light reflects off your ghost-white naked silhouette. These flashing carnival lights have taken all the love out of me.

All I want is for you to look inside me and come along for the breakdown. I think you've barely seen me breathe. You're packing your bags and heading out of town, leaving me here with nothing to ease the pain. I want you so bad, I'd never leave you. I'm sitting here waiting without you for a phone call I know can never come. There's still just a little bit of your kiss resting inside my lips, and I wonder how much longer I can hold it there before it becomes someone else's.

Everyone has a secret worth telling. Here's mine.

I'm not waiting for you to tell me you love me, for the second time, once again.