hide & seek

This was sparked off by seeing an old picture of myself amongst my friend's friendster pictures.
I stared for a long while at the picture,
a part of me finding her so familiar and yet, another part of me pulling away.

I really needed to talk, but everyone's busy.
No one's to blame for that actually; I'm no better.

I seem to find myself back in that place again.
The equilibrium between hope and hopelessness isn't as fantastic as it sounds, it just means you're back to square one and you're not quite sure which way is up.

It was 3am, that night.
You can smell the wind at 3am, you know.
At 3am, through your sleep, your eyes barely open, each smell, taste and touch is heightened.
Seems it anyway.
It was 3.30am, that night, two years and just about a month afterwards.
I could smell the wind, and i could taste my tears.

I hate being here, in this place, on this piece of crumbling rock.
Watching people mill around. They do things (most of them anyway) because they HAVE to, because THAT'S LIFE.
Because, to fight against what everyone's been doing thanklessly for the past century and more, would completely upset the entire universe and Saturn's ring is sure to slip off and crash right into Earth.

Who are you?
Who am I?
Why does who you are make me who I am?
Does who I am make me who you are?

There is no safety net below us.
We stand tall, focused only on getting to the other end of the tightrope.
Nobody looks down. To look down would just be suicide, and everyone knows that.

Well, I'm looking down right now-
And though i don't feel like falling, I feel like sitting down.
Yes, right in the middle of this tightrope. Just so that I can stare between my feet and count the faint lines that mark positions on the floor.

How is it that, so long after,
I still can't open those doors to the other world without feeling my eyes fill up and my chest ache?

Do you know that i miss you?
I miss you, how you used to be, how you used to laugh.
I miss me too. I miss how I could stare into the mirror and know who was staring back.
I miss how I could deal with not always having all the answers because,
the one that mattered most, had an answer engraved on the ring around my finger.

Why is she so strange?
This new girl, this person I barely know.
Are my eyes really that vacant?
I'm yanking open drawers and throwing open cupboard doors, but I can't seem to find all those relationships I held onto so long ago.

I know exactly where I am, and where I'm going.
I know exactly what I want, and what I am too busy to want.
So do i step over the shards of a life that's broken around me, or do i stop to pick up the pieces?

Where are you, and why are we here?
Why couldn't this all be so much simpler and involve no more that cups of Earl Grey and pieces of shortbread?

I hate this,
I hate not knowing; not understanding.

I want to figure it all out.


But i suppose, like all things,
let's just leave it to another day.
We all have work to do and nobody has time to wipe their snot.