I decided on stepping forward, over these lines that have seemed to be nothing less than endless drops in the earth; lines over us, away from us, and past us; lines past you. I trust my instinct, reasoning, and decision making. I trust myself with my life. But steps forward can often tear hearts apart, because steps forward don't always mean that your heart will feel right about it. I've been retracing my footsteps in hopes of finding and reclaiming every piece that I've left in my own wake, and my heart bends at the weight. It folds in ways that hearts were never meant to fold.
You see, I bore the thought that my confession would finally bring you around and to terms with everything that is fair in the love that was between each of our hearts. I heaved up mine when you tried to argue over what I know is clearly felt between them as well; and all that you could do was fall silent; I felt your will let in, as I watched all of your bluffs and fronts fall to the back. Your breakdown followed. But after our reasoning and coming-to, nothing changed. We awoke, but a part of you kept sleeping. Or maybe, even, a part of you died. And I just cannot stop asking it to myself; I can't get it out of my head. Because I don't know why, but for some reason you turned and you ran, again.
Every heart can only take so much, and mine is breaching. As bad as my heart may want to be with you, my head will no longer let it. I have constructed my own prison inside of my mind, and the only ways for you to reach me inside will be easy, only if your intention is truly honest and sincere. Any more of your shortcomings, just like the ones when you so unexpectedly turn and run, will never make it to me here. I will not bother with empty words or promises, any more.
In all physical senses, I have left you. And in many emotional senses, I have left you as well, but I have fought valiantly. I have stood bravely. I have stood for something. And I still stand for it. And as a man, you are supposed to stand for something; something right. I not only stood for what is still felt between us, but I stood for you, and everything that would make what is between us, stronger. I broke my knees from the weight of the efforts, and I collapsed, only to find ways to stand again. I've built my own splints, stilts, and casts from all of the conflicting and rhythmical emotions that have been and are inside of me, which held my head high, despite the heart that hangs from and out of my mouth. By now, I'm used to spitting it up with every word that comes out from the bottom of my lungs. My neck breaks from the weight of my mind over every word and memory of you that I think, imagine, and play out, and I hardly remember what it means to walk straight anymore. Your void keeps me off balance, and when I think that my spine has finally once again found its directness and reclaimed its inflexibility, your memory, and your ghost come to bend my figure back into an arch, bringing it back to the realizations of its irrationalities. My heart has shaken from its original place, and I feel its beating in my stomach now. I taste it in every word that I speak. I spit it up with every memory that places itself in front of me. And my eyes grow empty as I watch every one of them replay in front of me, reminding me of what I don't have.
I sit in a theatre, in my own head; one seat, one screen, one girl, and countless memories. My heart stays steady with unease, and I remind myself to breathe steadily. Somehow though, my breath still escapes me here, and my sanity leaves me reeling. But I've long known that unpleasant lives come only to those who let it; at least in my situation. I won't let life beat me down, and I stand by that statement. So despite your absence that was brought about so selfishly; and still, despite the growing arches of my body, I watch. Still, I restrain my breaking neck, and I hold it high, as I spite the casts and the pains that have become tenants within them. Still, I swallow, despite the taste; despite that sickening, unsettling taste. And still, I watch, despite its pain.
I have heard two distinct definitions of men. The kind that define themselves by their abilities to ignore all emotion and show of heart, because they have decided to consider feelings a weakness, and the kind that define themselves by sincerity and their abilities to focus clearly on all emotion, which they have decided to consider a strength. I have tried my best to become these and everything in between, to a balanced position that doesn't weigh towards either side unfavorably, and I will continue to follow through with this to the best of my abilities.
Because like the first, you must have the strength to move forward, but you must also possess the emotional understanding of why you're moving forward, or else it will be for nothing.
And like the second, you must have the emotional understanding of yourself, but you must also have the strength to move forward when the time is called for, no matter how much that it may hurt you. This is why there is no in-between, and why most men who fall into either of these categories struggle so badly with life's situations which aren't in their favor. Just like the breach that I once even found myself lost in.
Here in this lies a definite frustration which I hold towards you: Your ability to move forward without the full emotional understanding of the situation or why you're moving forward, and your ability to move forward while entirely ignoring your heart to the best of your abilities. In a sense it's not even 'moving forward.' Just turning your back to a situation, and moving away from it, trying your best to forget it. You can hardly grow for the better as a person, like this. You are supposed to face your obstacles. This is one reason why I gave you more. And every time that I began to move forward, you had the knowledge of knowing that my heart weighed heavier than it ever has before, and so did I, and still, so do I. But you have failed to meet me with this. You have failed to meet me on many different levels, and so unfortunately, I've grown used to it. You were something else when our first spark lit inside of us; something that I thought that I would never amount to, or be deserving of.
And with the heaviest of hearts, I have to admit that you have let that part of me down tremendously. And in the back of my own head, I constantly repeat the worries of hoping to God that I've never done the same to you, no matter how sure that I am of myself that I didn't. Because if there is a god, I have no idea how I would ever be able to look him/her in the eye and explain my reasoning for it; because simply put, there is no reasoning for it. Most people are so feeble minded that they only make excuse after excuse for these types of situations and their actions. And unfortunately, it's because most people aren't decent enough human beings to be able to admit it to themselves either. Self-reflection is a miracle, only when thought through with grounded feet.
So I stand with a buckling frame that hasn't a guarantee of whether it will hold together or not. I've learned that the right ways can often be the hardest, physically and mentally, and sometimes the vision of your own two legs standing on their own and the simple thought of the normal stances that you typically take may be as disheartening as any struggle that you've clawed your way uphill before. I stand against an overwhelming number of mindsets that find themselves restrained to only the simplest forms of thinking and consideration, but I'm no better; I mean no condescension. I just have a heavier conscience; I see the potential that does exist within compassion instead of selfishness; why can't they?
That extra length that they're always talking about going for somebody; you know, that extra mile? Well, it's only a mile; it's not that far, I promise.
But with such restraint towards kindness, honor, and integrity in this place, I have become a rusting and crumbling machine bearing the weight of the world on each gear, and at times my frame becomes questionable and the scraping of the metal deems its promises of safety to be dishonest. But there is more to my frame than just rusting and rotting limbs; this outer shell lies; it's backwards. Because even the weight of the world won't cave into the cavity that holds my heart in place or even into my very frame surrounding it. Not the weight of the world, or the seas, or even the oceans. It's funny isn't it? How only she can get to me there.
I haven't written in some time. It's not that I couldn't. I actually thought that I could stray from my writings of you, but I was foolish. Its been hard accepting the truth of our overcoming of each other, and I won't lie: this latest entry has also been hard in its own sense; its taken me some time. I told myself that I would give myself that time to get my mind right, or at least to reassure that it's right; and right now, I think that it's right. But as I know and am convinced that you're enwrapped in the arms of someone new right now, I've grown okay enough to live beside it; to be able to live my life to the fullest despite the anchor that your absence and new loves twist around my feet. I don't agree with it; but I can look it in the eyes and continue with my life regardless of its dull and blank stare; regardless of the unraveling ties between your heart and mine that wear away every single minute, or at least what's left of them; I at least know that I have got mine. But still I can exhale and honestly admit that I am okay; in every sense that doesn't involve feelings for another at least. At this point I am confined into nothing more than brick walls with exits signs that burnt out a very long time ago, and the exit doors have been boarded shut. The only light that I find in this tunnel and within your new loves is your happiness that comes with it. The rest of the time, my eyes dilate.
I once wrote about a mountain that I stood on, waiting for you. Do you remember? My hands were bleeding from all of the uphill climbing that it took me to get there. And with your picture forcing my muscles' movements, I hardly hesitated at each and every new wound and opening. I focused onto your outline distanced at the top of the wall in front of me. I watched it grow closer as my heart equally eased itself; my tension released. But when I came within distance, I realized that your outline wasn't really you, and my eyes burned at the sight and realization of what was only your ghost. My mind screamed and my pace grew as quickly as it could. But despite as hard as I tried; despite as fast as my arms and legs could scramble; as I grew nearer, your vision only faded, and you wept and sang to me of all of our missed opportunities and our unfulfilled potential. You cried of our unintentional offsets and all of the simple misunderstandings that our hearts became buried in. You hummed the tunes of our warmth and safety being ripped right from us. I leapt in desperation to hear you come to ease; my heart couldn't bare it. And finally at your feet I reached my hand out, breathing with the relief that I had made it to you. I smiled, and exhaled. But I extended my hand, only for your vision to finally fade away within it. My eyes grew empty, and the life inside of them took a seat onto the cold floor. I dropped my heart, and I dropped my head, and your singing grew faint. It echoed into an exit, ringing in, but mostly out of my mind. And with my head down I matched her words perfectly and instead, I didn't let the humming, or the song, die out; I knew the tune. Because I never told you that the entire way up I sang it to myself too. I knew of our misapprehensions; I studied them inside and out, and I was determined to resolve them; it's one of the many reasons that pushed me up here. So I made it to the top of this mountain; this test; only to find myself lost from you. At times I scream out your name in every direction around me. I tune in, I strain my mind, and I exhaust my body, just heeding your response.
Every day I find myself waiting on this same plateau; I awake onto it. And every day it stays the same; at least my emotional placement on it does. I do not sway and I do not change. Because I know in my head and my heart what I want, what exists, what doesn't exist, and what deserves to be shown or not when it comes to my emotions and wantings. Loneliness tends to be momentary; momentary. I'm wise enough to compare momentary feelings to undying ones. I'm wise enough to distinguish between the two. And I'm wise enough to know which one conquers which. Unfortunately, I've met far too many individuals who would sacrifice an eternal feeling for a very short-lived one. The pure ignorance and lack of patience gags my every reflex. More than half of you sell yourselves short of one of the most amazing things that life has to offer. Most of you are blind, and can't even see it. Because many of you can't or refuse to even begin to understand the true, uncorrupted meanings of love. What most of you consider an ultimate love is nothing but the very beginnings to its true definition. That mistake won't be mine to carry, and that mistake won't be mine to make, although even you, lover, have made it.
I have become a slave to this mountain. I have become stranded onto it. But instead of following the normal shipwrecked stories of the crew tossing bottled letters into the sea and engraving the words 'help' into the side of the island, I have chosen another proverb, which I pray that every passerby sees. I extend this hope to the world; I surrender my only hopes of escape from this place, to it. It needs it much more than I do.
To this dearest, incorrigible, and disrating world:
Love does exist.
And unconditional love does exist; the kinds that most hearts cannot fathom.
Whether I were to be the last to hold it, or not; that is not the point.
I am man enough to stand beside it and to defend it. And I am man enough to die with it; alone or not; with your hand in mine, or not.
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