#fcollege

           I've spent too much time thinking about swimming pools lately; that just seems to be where I have been finding myself. Face down, at the bottom of the pool looking for answers - all I can hear are screams ripping from my chest. Sometimes they are so loud that my hands shake, and sometimes, they are so quiet that I remember how fragile it is to be alive. Once I escaped the pool, I sat myself down. The bathroom inside of my old home never seemed too good, but it was a window to possibilities; greater outcomes. Sitting at the bottom of the tub though, I saw nothing but silver - less than gold, and far from success. It becomes hard to pull yourself out of the blue when the only songs playing on loud speakers remind you of roots. Grass roots aren't always successful.

           I never imagined sitting in front of a screen in the year of twenty-sixteen, yet here I am, writing away to better days. The worst part is that I cannot even consider it writing - just thoughts drawing across pages of white, ink splattered onto the floor that my parents will complain about in the morning. That's very twenty first century. Creativity is sacrificed for conformity, and before you know it you're a living robot - maybe a piece of modern art.

           Settling for this seems rough, and I can't seem to find the right words to agree to it. I repeat myself until the blood from teeth crushing cheeks releases; this is when I become a martyr. Nothing but a few good words, and some thoughts that could have gone farther than paper. Uninspired, I rustle around my bed until three in the afternoon wondering where the beauty of leaving bed is at. Of course, I could splatter paint across a page - yellow and red create orange, but what's know is know.

Take me back to the passenger seat of your car. The nights I would trip on words that meant nothing but harm. You always told me I would mean better in the morning. "It's the alcohol talking, you know that you care more than that." You told me I would feel better in the morning, but now it seems that mornings alone, left hand on the steering wheel, right hand holding a cigarette are what you prefer.

What I want you to take me back to is my basement, three in the morning, the night where my mom had to break up a fight. You standing in the frame of my bathroom door, while I was telling you to leave. A year of tension, just to tell you that you meant nothing more than someone to cry to. You were nothing more than someone I thought too much about, and cared too little about to appreciate. Take me back to taking you for granted. Because we're older now, and your eyes speak in words of satisfaction. I'm two eyes on one face, asking to mean more than your second thought.

The thing is, I would be lying if I said I didn't miss screaming until three in the morning. I would be lying if I said I didn't miss meeting your mother - long before she thought I was toxic, or before I wished for another night in your car - long after alcohol took over my thoughts. This is an open apology for telling you that you should have walked away when I opened my ninth can. Remember? The night I thought you that I only liked you because you knew how to drive a car on back-roads, that cliché, "you're welcome" for being around at the right times? But now you think of the world in minutes. Nothing means more than how high you're going to get, how far we're going to get, how close we'll be to slipping and apologizing. It's two in the morning and I'm apologizing.

Miles apart. This could be considered a comparison of how it felt when you were next to my hands. Voice too loud. You never understood what I meant when I would cry. You never even understood what I meant when I asked you to stop - it was too fun for you.

And it was funny. Everything about you was funny. Your voice would crack when you talked about the way I made your face feel. You could never sing my favorite songs without messing up the words. There was that time where you told me that you wish the world would end, not as poetically as I wished, but you talked about how the sun should stop rising and it would be an adventure. Everything was funny, and maybe that's why I laughed when you told me to get away.

You told me to get away, and all I remember are staircases that lead to cold air and friends that talked too much. All I remember are tears down my face, bitter-sweet because I said it was my fault.

Miles apart. Damn, you didn't even say goodbye. You sat across a table playing your games, and you knew exactly how hard it was to speak through my teeth.

           I've been drinking too much lately, but how could I help it when the best feeling is a can to the lips and music louder than any occurring conversation playing? You talk me up like I have something to work for, and I can't help but wonder why you're constantly wishing me good night. Because you see, I do these things where the night becomes too heavy, and my legs become too weak, my eyes start to close and I can't seem to think straight. Boys kissing me that aren't even able to pronounce my last name, but they don't care - they're more concerned with how long I'll talk to break. Sometimes I wake up and wonder how much you hate me. All I seem to do is laugh at myself in the morning - you can't solve a problem if the problem isn't apparent.

I want to come home to you though. I want to come home to you and kiss your lips. I want you to find the nearest train and ride aboard, come home to me and tell me that I was never wrong. We could play songs that make my heart beat a little bit faster, and we could talk about how my friends drink just as much as I do. I'll explain how my stomach hurts sometimes because I start to think about how much I messed up the past few months, and you could tell me that it's alright. That's what you're best at. We could drive around and see the places I feel most comfortable, and I'll tell you about my childhood - the swing in the park where I swore I found love.

           I've been drinking too much, but I want you to come around. We could drink coffee, or tea - whatever you want, and I'll tell you all about how I want to change the world. I'll annoy you with the amount of psychology conversation I'll make, and you'll probably end up flipping through my binder until I'm done pointing out how stupid my handwriting could get.

I guess what I want is for you to see that I'm doing alright - just not as good as I could be doing with you around. Maybe I'll spend a few days in a glass room, and you could see the parts of me that I haven't even began to understand. You could write about it, or maybe paint it on a paper with your favorite colors - mines yellow. And things could slow down from the speed I've been taking them. I want you to know that your voice is actually the most calming sound I can hear, and not to be cliché, but I really want to hear you sing your favorite songs while driving around in the morning for bagels and coffee. And this will sound cliché too, but I want you to talk to my parents about how you see your future, and I want you to love my Mom as much as I do.

            Too many clouds are passing over the place I have been lately. Talking seems more difficult than it should, but people always seem to have something to say when you have no words. I would be lying if I said that I was not sensitive, and I would be lying if I had told you that it was easy being this way. People are too important when I get invested within their brains. I sit in my room, and like the craziest people around, I wonder about every aspect of these people. What colors make their faces feel blushed, and why did they realize that they had the potential to be doing the things they are doing? Too many clouds are passing by, because someone could sit across the table from me, with alcohol glazed eyes, tell me that I need to stop caring and I can never catch on.

            I hate when I end up sitting in the dark talking with people too, because I’ve never been the kind of person who wanted to talk about my own problems. That only gives people something to talk about when they run out of people to talk about. Which, in terms, is really starting to get inside of my head, though it shouldn’t, and it’s becoming draining emotionally when I start to consider if I actually did make the right choice coming to my campus.

And there are people that I see passing by. I wish I could talk to them, because sometimes I forget that the people I know are not permanent. I sometimes forget that I could easily just say good-bye, and call it a day. I could very easily cut my hair, or change my name – move away, far away, because somehow I was born into privilege of limitless possibilities. However, I can’t seem to move my feet when my head is spinning like it is.

           I'm the perfectly sculpted time bomb, ticking away at every single gesture passing the street. Laughter lines crafted along my smirks, and the slight bit of tension within every single hello. Your voice cracks whenever we talk, and maybe this is because you can tell we're lost. Caught up in a trivia of wrongs and rights, misguided words that get the best of me. I tell the world that I hate you, but with every single syllable I'm thinking about how much I wish you'd ring my phone.

There was a night where we talked about skin as if it were art. "We could become a piece of nature, leathered up beneath each fiber of white." I told you that there was no piece of art I would rather write about. Now I'm counting down the nights until I can be placed far away from you in a world that you couldn't imagine. The world where trees cover my backyard, and my parents joke about how the older I get, the younger they feel.

I feel this way because I hate that art of words are wasted on someone so selfish. I hate that I spend my hours writing about someone who couldn't even bother to apologize when they were wrong, or someone that thinks the people who mean least are the best. That last line is a bit bitter, maybe bias as well.

           I'm broken down to the bones under my skin. Alcohol sooths the wounds of words you never meant, and I hate to admit it, but the only way I drink is until I forget why I cracked the can. Life isn't as basic as it used to be. It spins in circles when I'm trying to walk a straight line, and now that the seasons are changing, my fingers tend to represent the same temperature as the way you treated me; cold.  Because I was nothing more than a record that you played over and over again at your own interest - I think that you were trying to break a record of plays to impress your friends, or maybe I was just a muse that meant nothing more than the sky when you realize you've lost a best friend; subtle, and comforting, but too beautiful to become a part of. I was too fragile to lay a hand upon without the fear creating a crack like glass.

And now that you've built up your pride I realize that you won't be swallowing anything relatively soon. You're too good for that, like the words I would preach to you about how you should be holding your head up, you've become more than a metaphor, but a breathing structure of bones covered with skin. Maybe waiting around for a familiar voice would be wasting too much time.

I talk to my father like he knows the right words to say, however, he just drinks until the cans start stacking on the counter in our basement. The comfort I find in the slur of his words reminds me of the song you forgot the words too when you decided to sing to me on my birthday. I hate that I can't go without relating even the most terrifying moments of my life to you. Because I never found a reason to call you home, and I can't even remember the first or last time I felt your skin - maybe we touched in dreams.