Even if I Told You
The answers seemed so simple, staring down at the road in front of me. Like I should be able to reach my hand out in front of myself, and grab them one by one from the air. And it seemed like the right thing to think - the right thing to do, as I sat there, just staring at that picture of you. And the more I looked, the easier it became to recall the memories of the past...
I walked away from the rest of my life to realize my dreams. The dreams that I just one day dreamt up of you - of life - of the way things were going to be. And one day, I decided that it was time - time for me to get going. So I packed up everything I thought you and I might need, and I put it all in a big backpack - and I up and left.
While I was out on the road, I started thinking. The further I got from home, the more I thought. I started thinking how strange it was that I was walking out here, by myself, on this quest - this search to find the answers. Then, when I thought about you standing there, walking beside me, it all seemed to get a little clearer. Or maybe it just got a little darker. I can't tell now. But from there, we went on anyway.
And so, we walked. We walked for what felt like days, for what looked like miles. And when we would get tired, we would just keep on walking. And when we were hungry? We'd walk. Sometimes, when we were just enough used to the silences between us, we'd talk. We'd pass the time with metaphors for our lives and for jokes about the past and for the fears we still had. But other times, we wouldn't say anything. We'd start to talk about nothin - and we'd just end that way. But it didn't always really matter. What mattered was that we were walking.
Then, one day, we actually ended up somewhere. It was a place unlike the home I'd left. It looked strange, felt strange, even smelled strange. But something about it made me like it, made me want to stay in it, made me love it despite how much I hated how cold it was there. I think, now looking back at it, it must have been the mystery. It must have been being somewhere, anywhere, with you there standing beside me. Or, sometimes I think, maybe it was just the air.
Either way, I took a liking to it - and I didn't want to go back home anymore. I wanted to sit down and stay here - here in this place that was so unlike anything I knew. You kept trying to tell me that it was home; kept trying to point out how it was just the same. I didn't like it when you'd do that. It made me angry because it tried to explain the place. It tried to take away the reason that I'd started to love it at all.
Eventually, I think you realized that you couldn't explain it all away. You couldn't make this jungle, this desert, this oasis in a world we didn't like - home. You couldn't make me admit that it was the same. And I couldn't make you see that it wasn't.
I still remember the day you left. You had all of your little bags full of coconuts and bamboo sticks with you, held up over your right shoulder. I remember looking at you, thinking of the times you'd pick me up like that sack and throw me over your shoulder. And, as I stared at you, I started to actually feel something - like I would miss you when you were gone. Like this place had been home, but now it never could be.
You took with you the door to the shelter we'd built. I'm not sure still why you did that. I guess you thought you'd need it where you were going. I let you take it. I figured I might not need it, what with you being gone. I thought that I'd just pack my sack as well; that I'd go on and find a different place that smelled different and felt different - and I'd find a place that I wouldn't want to call home.
But since you left, I still sit here, staring at the place where the door to the shelter used to sit. Sometimes, I weave the grass into long necklaces or thin bracelets - and I wear it. Sometimes, I even climb the palm tree behind the caves and I pick the coconuts - and I try to break them open and eat them. But it's hard. It's hard to do without you there.
I manage, in the end of the day. Mostly, I gather up my things and I put them in the shelter - the one without a door now - and I curl up in the corner and I try to fall alseep. Sometimes, the wind keeps me awake or the cold wakes me up after a few minutes with my eyes shut against the night. Sometimes, I don't even try to sleep. I just lay there with my eyes open and my mind spinning - remembering the first time I looked at this place, and I thought about how I'd be happy, even if you left it. Then sometimes, I don't do anything. I just sit outside the shelter, out in the dark and the cold, and I wonder where the stars would be if I took the time to look at them; and I wonder about the man on the moon - if he's still alive, or if he too has died of the loneliness.
When the morning comes, I usually get up and go about the things I usually go about. I don't think about the shelter, or the door that's missing, or the way that things are starting to just look the same. I don't think about my sack, or the one slung over your shoulder - or if it'd still be there the way that I remember it. I don't think about the coconuts in the palm trees behind the caves that I can't really break open or eat. I don't think about the ocean that you left on, or the boat that you left me here with. I try not to - anyway.
Sometimes, I use the boat. I go out on the sea and I catch a few fish. I don't fry them up, though. I just let them sit in the sand for a while, until I get tired of their smell. Then I throw them back into the tide, and I watch them drift away - dead. It reminds me of things, or at least of something. But I tell myself not to think about it.
I tell myself not to think about a good lot of things. I tell myself to just go about my day, like I always did. And, I tell myself not to look at the road that I could come and go on. It's just too simple, you know. All this coming and going. It's too simple to just pack up my sack, and do what you did. It would be too easy to get in that boat and sail out into the wide ocean, and drill a hole in the bottom; and drown. It'd be too easy to knock down the shelter and to pretend that I wasn't living here anymore - even if I can't admit to myself that I am.
It'd be too easy too easy to just leave; too easy to disappear.
*******
-RK
I walked away from the rest of my life to realize my dreams. The dreams that I just one day dreamt up of you - of life - of the way things were going to be. And one day, I decided that it was time - time for me to get going. So I packed up everything I thought you and I might need, and I put it all in a big backpack - and I up and left.
While I was out on the road, I started thinking. The further I got from home, the more I thought. I started thinking how strange it was that I was walking out here, by myself, on this quest - this search to find the answers. Then, when I thought about you standing there, walking beside me, it all seemed to get a little clearer. Or maybe it just got a little darker. I can't tell now. But from there, we went on anyway.
And so, we walked. We walked for what felt like days, for what looked like miles. And when we would get tired, we would just keep on walking. And when we were hungry? We'd walk. Sometimes, when we were just enough used to the silences between us, we'd talk. We'd pass the time with metaphors for our lives and for jokes about the past and for the fears we still had. But other times, we wouldn't say anything. We'd start to talk about nothin - and we'd just end that way. But it didn't always really matter. What mattered was that we were walking.
Then, one day, we actually ended up somewhere. It was a place unlike the home I'd left. It looked strange, felt strange, even smelled strange. But something about it made me like it, made me want to stay in it, made me love it despite how much I hated how cold it was there. I think, now looking back at it, it must have been the mystery. It must have been being somewhere, anywhere, with you there standing beside me. Or, sometimes I think, maybe it was just the air.
Either way, I took a liking to it - and I didn't want to go back home anymore. I wanted to sit down and stay here - here in this place that was so unlike anything I knew. You kept trying to tell me that it was home; kept trying to point out how it was just the same. I didn't like it when you'd do that. It made me angry because it tried to explain the place. It tried to take away the reason that I'd started to love it at all.
Eventually, I think you realized that you couldn't explain it all away. You couldn't make this jungle, this desert, this oasis in a world we didn't like - home. You couldn't make me admit that it was the same. And I couldn't make you see that it wasn't.
I still remember the day you left. You had all of your little bags full of coconuts and bamboo sticks with you, held up over your right shoulder. I remember looking at you, thinking of the times you'd pick me up like that sack and throw me over your shoulder. And, as I stared at you, I started to actually feel something - like I would miss you when you were gone. Like this place had been home, but now it never could be.
You took with you the door to the shelter we'd built. I'm not sure still why you did that. I guess you thought you'd need it where you were going. I let you take it. I figured I might not need it, what with you being gone. I thought that I'd just pack my sack as well; that I'd go on and find a different place that smelled different and felt different - and I'd find a place that I wouldn't want to call home.
But since you left, I still sit here, staring at the place where the door to the shelter used to sit. Sometimes, I weave the grass into long necklaces or thin bracelets - and I wear it. Sometimes, I even climb the palm tree behind the caves and I pick the coconuts - and I try to break them open and eat them. But it's hard. It's hard to do without you there.
I manage, in the end of the day. Mostly, I gather up my things and I put them in the shelter - the one without a door now - and I curl up in the corner and I try to fall alseep. Sometimes, the wind keeps me awake or the cold wakes me up after a few minutes with my eyes shut against the night. Sometimes, I don't even try to sleep. I just lay there with my eyes open and my mind spinning - remembering the first time I looked at this place, and I thought about how I'd be happy, even if you left it. Then sometimes, I don't do anything. I just sit outside the shelter, out in the dark and the cold, and I wonder where the stars would be if I took the time to look at them; and I wonder about the man on the moon - if he's still alive, or if he too has died of the loneliness.
When the morning comes, I usually get up and go about the things I usually go about. I don't think about the shelter, or the door that's missing, or the way that things are starting to just look the same. I don't think about my sack, or the one slung over your shoulder - or if it'd still be there the way that I remember it. I don't think about the coconuts in the palm trees behind the caves that I can't really break open or eat. I don't think about the ocean that you left on, or the boat that you left me here with. I try not to - anyway.
Sometimes, I use the boat. I go out on the sea and I catch a few fish. I don't fry them up, though. I just let them sit in the sand for a while, until I get tired of their smell. Then I throw them back into the tide, and I watch them drift away - dead. It reminds me of things, or at least of something. But I tell myself not to think about it.
I tell myself not to think about a good lot of things. I tell myself to just go about my day, like I always did. And, I tell myself not to look at the road that I could come and go on. It's just too simple, you know. All this coming and going. It's too simple to just pack up my sack, and do what you did. It would be too easy to get in that boat and sail out into the wide ocean, and drill a hole in the bottom; and drown. It'd be too easy to knock down the shelter and to pretend that I wasn't living here anymore - even if I can't admit to myself that I am.
It'd be too easy too easy to just leave; too easy to disappear.
*******
-RK
4 Thought(s):
Yeah, I know what you mean. So easy to just hide or to just run away from the past, or any problems. Wish we just didn't have to deal with such things. 'Course it's usually the worse way, but, oh, it's just so easy!
I like it. It tells the story very well... it suits the subject. :)
Avoidance, what a lovely drug eh? Yet, it is only a band aid for the wound inside.
Exactly. Just as the story says, it'd be too easy to just disappear...
Yes. Far too easy. That is precisely why, one cannot. AUGH!
What an ugly little vortex ey?
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