So gathering my courage, I headed down to be introduced. I mean, I went on my own.

I have been dreaming of a far off place;
where a daughter could go home.
They will smile when they see her face;
and her journey is complete.

**

Starting with you and me,
let’s journey to the end of the world.

I will teach you how to dream,
be your strength and raise your chin.

I will teach you how to smile;
Materialise giddy joy between our hands.

I will teach you how to cry;
With the death of a dearest friend.

I will teach you how to give;
Five loaves and two fishes.

I will teach you how to believe;
Three days and for eternity.

I will teach you how to save;
With a cross and a crown of thorns.

I will tell you how much I love you,
every step of the way.

So before the end of the world;
Wouldn’t you start your journey with another?

**

It seems like it is over when I had my answer.
I was trying so hard to say goodbye, like it is the only thing that matters.
Till now, I don’t think I truly understand what it means for an end.
Maybe you do, maybe I did.
Yet, what were recorded were my tears, long after the moment was gone.

**

There is only one way to talk about running away. You talk about it like it is the better option, not for you but for the others while poise for flight.
The slivers of formless arrows were plummeting into dirt and windows which put up a seemingly strong front even as they rattled. Inside sheltered beyond the trembling windows, she sat on the side of her foot, the bone of her buttocks poking inquiringly at it. Technology is a great thing. It narrows five hours and fifteen minutes distance. It freezes memories and transports them fresh to unwilling recipients. She was not an unwilling recipient.
As the familiar name shimmy up the fourteen point one wide screen, her crooked finger slide firmly against the touchpad and received the digital package with a delicate tap. As the page winked up and loads, she eased more comfortably into her chair, wrinkling her toes against the premature signs of cramp.
Pictures. Words are not needed here. The graphics are capable to tell a story on their own. Or maybe, the graphics are capable to tell a story of their own. They were all smiling at the camera, as if determine to capture only the happy and to remember the happy. Were they smiling because she was not there and if she was, would they be able to smile like that? She shook herself, mortified that the width of her perspective revolves only around her. Why can they not be smiling because they are happy, she thought crossly, reaching up to rub the side of her neck.
Too suddenly, she wanted words. Though what she really wanted and had yet to realise, was assurance. The pictures are too vague, and being five hours and fifteen minutes away unsettled her. It was silly, but she was only being honest with herself. She did not know where those thoughts come from either, and she did not willingly summon them from the happy pictures. Truthfully speaking, she would not have been happy if they are not happy. The pursuit of happiness is a strange and perplexing roundabout.
She noticed her left hand shaking, an illogical sequence that was initiated by the right hand. She worried about it, perplexed that she should worry about it.
She was ready to crown herself a stormy petrel, ready to be condemned to a nomad life. Really, the latter started off normal too. Pictures. They do look happy. She is five hours and fifteen minutes away. They do look happy with her five hours and fifteen minutes away.
In spite of all protest of the other voice that lives in all of us, she concluded that it is better for her to stay five hours and fifteen minutes away. In fact, she could go further and longer. No one will be any the wiser. In her attempt, all she wanted was to keep those smiles as they are. She wanted the happy pictures frozen and transported fresh to unwilling recipients to remain happy pictures determined only to capture the happy and to remember the happy. Of course, if she manages to appear noble in her attempt it is certainly not orchestrated.
That is how you talk about running away. You tell why. At the end of it, it really slinks off to a darken corridor in your head. That is how your brain summons the truth from the dregs of your memories. It revisits me at certain time of the nights, more so when the sliver arrows plunge and splatters against the emptiness of the vacant expression of those trembling windows.

**

Should I continue without dream or hope of circling back to you, I wonder.

Should I stop lingering at the door like an obsess stalker, I wonder.

Is this love, I wonder.

I have asked nicely, screamed at the closed door, banging with a mess and tears. But, no we are not meant to be so. I have dressed it up; people around me have dressed it up. You might have thought that I would have no regrets. I pursued you till I could not anymore. Yet why is it so, that what was set in stone was what I could not do, I wonder.

I should have no regrets. I put out everything in line for you; fighting to even stay in the shred of light through the closing gap for years. Walking away denies not only the future but also the past. Without either one, what is left for the present, I wonder.

Do I have to love you from afar, keep my feelings in check and not fuse in with my all? Would that be the only way to keep some semblance of relation? Should I now learn to love the door, the only thing left between you and I, I wonder.

You shouldn’t have been left to wonder like I have been left to wonder.

**

Before the words…

The Absent Horror she experienced has yet to set in fully. The slip of paper hung feebly between her thumb and finger, seasoned not by the humidity nor her touch but Time. Time has brought in Absent Horror, and she was a witness. She longs to close her eyes; close them against the shuffling feet and low indignant inundations.

She casted her eyes blankly over to the left, looking for the only familiar comfort that is away. Pressing her lips together, she refocused on the paper or more on the gaping numerical difference separated by a mere red stroke. She tried to summon some emotions but the pale touch of grief prevailed. She wondered briefly about his grades.

He had abandon the spot on her left, and was rushing across half the class poking at the corners of the similar seasoned papers. His results must have invigorate him into such activity, she thought. He certainly has no tact, but she had yet told him about being a witness to Absent Horror, so really there was no case. Stretching out of inactivity, she re-arranged her posture to a slump.

“Don’t be sad, look they got lower than you! So, don’t be sad.”

Her lips formed a tiny “o”.

**

I want to be patient, so I will not get ahead with ideals. I want to be courageous, so I can step out for truth. I want to be true, so I can live in the light. I want to live, so I can see hope. I want to hope, so I can be joyful. I want to be joyful, so I can brave any storms.

I want to be pro-active, so I don’t have to fall back on reactive strategies.

**

I am living in another world. A world within reach; a world within the world. A world that is included in the world, yet set apart as another world. I am living in another world, my dear, within yours but separated by the two of us.

**

Label

When I step out of that label which has both protected and alienated me, am I nothing to you? I keep trying to break away from it, but looking back I truly have not. I have just been using it; as a leverage and shield. For something so abused, I loathe to stand beside it. Perhaps, all I have succeed in is to tarnish it and cause people around me to stumble. But I hold on to it sometimes, because without it how would I be any different? Without it, all I have is the corners of a room and the shadows in the light.

I am standing in these shoes, wishing for the courage to look at it as it is, wishing for the strength to take it by the horns. As unbelievable as it sounds, every time the scars flash before my eyes and I jerk back and turn into that hateful shivering mess. I have walked out. I am more stable than I ever was. But I am still that coward who chose to walk away.

So, maybe you saw that.

Beyond the label that you didn’t know exist; that is who I am.

I don’t know how to go back.

But I want to try.