The Broken

I've been trapped between knowing and not knowing. I'm a character forced into the background, only brought forward for split seconds before falling back into the distance

against my will. Choose to keep me or choose to leave me, I think. But just choose one.

And so I say everything I've ever thought of saying.

I shout to someone who may or may not be listening, without letting myself be hindered by thoughts of embarrassment or image. I say everything I've felt, everything I've told my friends, everything I've held back from even my closest friend for fear that they wouldn't understand or worse, wouldn't approve. I sit down defenseless and say everything I've thought I've done wrong, everything I've thought I could have done better even if now I know I did the best I could. I sacrifice the person I was to the person I am now and let her speak her last words into the void without thinking if someone will catch them and listen or if they'll float meaninglessly until they dissipate into meaninglessness.

And then my thoughts go quiet. The longing stops, my tears don't fall anymore.

When Christmas comes, I write to you saying "Merry Christmas." And it isn't because I want to hear from you, or I want to talk to you. It's because I've realized what little power you have over me, the power I thought you had simply being the wall I put down keeping myself from stepping forward. My conscience will not be stained with the knowledge that I spited you by not sending you a wish for the new year.

And when you text me "Merry Christmas" back, I stare at the message and think about what I want to say next. Except I've said everything I wanted to say. There's nothing more. I'm empty.

Then a month later you send me a video, and the only emotion filling me is anger. Anger that you still will not choose to keep me or leave me, and even if you will not choose you're robbing me of choosing myself. When I see your name, I don't feel the dizziness fill my body and be overcome by an emotion I don't know the name of but certainly cannot be love. Suddenly I have words again. You've filled back what emptiness I had for you with anger, and words that I must let out again. Why would you do this? Because you thought I'd like it. And maybe I wasn't as empty as I thought. Maybe you're not as empty as I thought. Because you won't let me leave.

I'm left with a furious curiosity. I'm angry at you for holding onto me, I'm angry at myself for letting you. I'm curious what you want, but I'm furious I still want to know.

But I still ask. And you still have me hanging. I sit and wonder how I find myself in purgatory again. I had said all I wanted to say, I was empty, and it was so easy for you to find something left in me and nurture it to grow with no effort until I'm back in the palm of your hand. There are no words to let out, but I'm still stuck.

And I heard the lights are out tonight. They never reach this far south, but tonight they will. And I'm angry, my half drunken glass of wine sitting on the table where I placed it to turn out all my apartment lights and peek out the window for any semblance of color. But the streetlights are too bright, and all I can make out is a faint purple hue in the distance. And although the streetlights are too bright, they illuminate a darkness that I've let surround me, and all I can think of is getting out.

They're nothing. They're just a few lights, almost a slight purple tint with hints of green in the foreground moving faintly across the night sky. It isn't much, but it's beautiful. Who can I share this with? I take out my phone and mimic what my friends did, increasing the light reflecting into my phone to make the greens and blues more intense until what's on my screen hardly reflects what's in front of me anymore. My finger hovers above the button and my eyes flick back up to the night sky. They're gone. Where are the lights? My hand falls back to my side as I keep staring upwards, my neck craned to a point where it's almost uncomfortable. Eventually, my eyes adjust back to the dark and the lights dance for me again. Their stage-fright returns as I lift my phone back up to snap a photo and I quickly shove it in my pocket. This is your show, I won't be rude. I'll watch.

The purple sky hangs above me, becoming more and more clear as my pupils draw bigger and bigger. What am I seeing? It's not the Northern Lights, it's not some magic light that appears in the sky every once in a while when the wind is just right. I'm looking at the sun. The sun shot out part of itself just to create these lights, these faint lights that can be dulled with the smallest headlight beam as a car goes by. They're not powerful, they're fragile. They're not magical, they're breakable. They're already broken.

And once again I'm angry. Angry because I'm thinking about how much you know I love the night sky. Angry because I'm curious again, curious if you're wondering if I'm looking at the lights. But at peace because you'll never know. This moment isn't for you. This moment is for the broken, to allow the light through the cracks back into me. And maybe you're broken too, I know you are. I know I hurt you as much as you hurt me, but it's easier to picture you as the one who cracked me and walked away without a scratch.

And I still have words, but at least my mind is quiet. I lay down in the snow and let time pass.