365 Attempts (At Life)

When you held me close, you smelled like love songs.

I drove down the old main road where I grew up. Past where the first cinema used to be. Past the Chinese restaurant that is now a healthy breakfast place. Past the vacant lot that was once our Royal Bank, the one where my mom got me my first bank book. Sitting there at the stoplight, I looked at the sidewalks I used to walk on. I squinted and saw myself there. The ghost of little girl me. She was kicking at pebbles in the heat, waiting for mom to come out of Steinberg’s grocery store. I could hear her humming a tune to herself as she drew hearts on the wall with her hand. She turned suddenly, shaded her eyes from the sun, and looked at me in my car. She didn’t seem to recognize me, but waved anyway. The light turned green before I had a chance to wave back.

You are not here. You're a mirage of accumulated pixels.

A lot of things are revealed, when it unravels. So when you find yourself disappointed by the big pile of yarn at your feet, ask yourself why you keep pulling the thread.

I haven’t felt every feeling. Surely there’s something left. Not just glimpses that get swallowed up inside a vacuum when I’m dreaming. And what is a dream? If not a feeling you had once that morphs until you wake up. Pieces of everything and remnants of fiction. Scattered and strange. Were you a dream? Or did you just feel like one?

There's something about you and the moon that I can't quite separate. 

That’s the thing with emotions, just when you think you have reigned them in, something, unexpectedly, sets them off.  And your feelings run amok.  Coloring your night an entirely different shade. Of red. Blue. Or grey. Until they are satisfied that they have your attention. And that they've left enough paint on your hands, to finish the job.