literature

these roads we travel

Deviation Actions

Published: Mar 4, 2012

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Literature Text

_{You could've been the girl who changed me.

I've fallen down and fallen apart enough times that it gets hard to remember, but sometimes I study my scars in the sunlight and trace the patterns back through time. I spend my mornings living in memories, reliving the places I've scuffed myself, and I've found that romance is better in hindsight. Her kisses are sweeter tinged with nostalgia, and it almost feels like I'm whole again when I'm thinking of the dents she put in my pulse and smoothing out the wrinkles she left in my resolve. For a moment, there's equilibrium, but then the sun is setting and I'm disoriented, dropping fragments of myself between cracks in the sidewalk I'm following down the street and towards an independent sunset. I'm standing on the corner and waiting for the light to turn, and you show up with a wayward smile cradled in your fingers. You press it into my grasp and I'm thinking maybe I've spent too much time looking at my flaws instead of my potential.

You could have lost yourself.

I've traveled these paths long enough to know that sometimes the road gets tough, and it's okay to ask for help. You held my hand yesterday, and where my knuckles brushed against your palm I could feel the marks of carrying this baggage for so long. Your hair was falling in your eyes and you smelled like cloves and I remember looking at you like it was the first time I really saw you. Because for a moment, I wasn't looking at you curled up into my side; I saw you struggling through the rain of doubt, a hailstorm of improbabilities, and all the while you were dragging a suitcase with his heavy heart locked inside. You were talking about something inconsequential and I was overwhelmed because I wanted to wrap my arms around you and tell you that it's okay, you can take a break in the middle of this journey. You can put down your load and let it wait until you're ready, because I've been there too and I left my worst memories to decay with the days. They've grown over and become a part of the landscape, but one day we'll go back and go through them and it won't hurt us, just remind. You fell asleep that night with your head tucked into the curve of my neck, and when I reached for your hand I spoke her name. I reached for your hand, and the blisters from his baggage heart were fresh.

And you could've been the girl I fall in love with, but we're staring at each other through mirrors. Like we're both reflections of someone else we should have been. Because the problem with falling in love again is that there's someone else who has a part of us, who has the first piece of our hearts we've ever given away and we're never going to get back, no matter how many times I open my eyes in the middle of the night and catch you smiling at me. Because there's someone who's already gotten under our skin, and no matter how many times you wake me up with kisses along my jaw line, there's always going to be a thunderstorm midnight when I open my eyes and catch you looking out the window, at the rain beating the ground, and you're going to be thinking of a boy with dark eyes and a darker smile. You're going to be watching the sky fall apart, and you're going to be wishing I wasn't the one tangled in your sheets.}