u/Healthy_Vermicelli89

hi! hello. do you see me? can you see me now?

i'm down here! sitting cross-legged at the bottom of the well. my body is submerged, my chin resting on the top of the water's surface, but i'm not gonna move.

eventually someone will bring their bucket to the hole and try and draw the water for their supper, only to find me instead. i'll hitch a ride on the rope, like a reverse rapunzel who climbs out sopping wet and thanks the maid for the lift.

maybe she'll just pitch me over and tip me back in, where i belong. they don't put people at the bottom of the well for nothing, after all- my crimes are numerous and neatly etched in the walls of my cobblestone prison. i tried to bring the knife to my neck but it didn't take, so i resorted to counting my days, one notch at a time.

it's hard to tell what time of day it is from this far down in the earth. the days of the week have long since slipped through my fingers, just like the water i frantically cup with my hands to sip.

maybe i could pull myself out if i tried to grab onto the slick stones and find purchase in makeshift handholds.

and maybe that would be a safer, faster way to find relief from my prison. a way which didn't rely entirely on the good will of another, that assumes that the person on the other end of the rope is kind and strong enough to pull you up with the water they need.

they didn't ask for me, after all. i could offer to make their food for them, in exchange for their favour, but my hands are stained and my hair is probably a ragged rats nest. nobody is going to trust me if i look like that. especially if they didn't ask for me.

and i would rather keep sitting at the bottom of this well than wait for something that never asked for me.

so i sit.

and i wait.

for the one that asks me to climb back out, and then waits patiently for my escape.

dear you,

i'm here again. funny how the tide always goes out and then comes back to the same place, isn't it?

i got lost chasing my own tail and then wondered why the tale i was inhabitating felt like a hollow impersonation, where i came in with everything but my head, and then lost my heart when the logic came into play.

you hold a grip on me that i can't describe, like fingers laced on the leash, cord wrapped around your knuckles as you pull harder. you twist it around your wrist to steady the bitch, ignoring my growls and snarls.

i want to claim it. i want the certainty you never gave me, that nobody ever gave me before. i crave the taste of love, then i swallow it down with blood cut from my own arm. it stings my tongue. it stings my arm. neither remember what love was meant to feel like.

i imagine your hand coming to rest on my waist, a single gesture that says nothing yet means everything. the splaying of your fingers over my hip in the pattern of possession, of a robin finally returning to the roost.

every spot where your fingertip graze the skin of my stomach is a memory and a white-hot press of everything you wouldn't let me forget. the power you wield with your long leash and lashing tongue, offering me the unexplainable. binding me to the never-offered, the never-ending sensation that something is missing.

there's an absence i feel so keenly that blisters in the shape of your sillouhette. it calls to me, across space and time; it begs me, in words loud enough for all to hear.

it traces the outline of my bones and draws me back in, whispering all the words that are left unspoken, broken missives to pull me back under.

you hold that power over me.

and i fear it will be my complete undoing.

there's a moment sometimes when the world goes silent and i am left, alone, with only my thoughts. i find it comforting, its presence lingering long after the noise of the city picks up again, the stresses attached to me along with it.

it asks me to sit here with how i feel and question myself, question everything about how i conduct my life. why do i do this, why did i break this, what is telling me to flee and is it legitimate or is it just me being scared?

i'm sure so many people here reading this want something i cannot provide.

and i feel as if this was something i should never have stumbled upon. it wasn't meant for me, i feel that with my chest, that much is certain. but i did stumble upon it, and i chose to forget myself in you, with no regard for the consequences of that forgetting.

and then i have the nerve to fall back into what is right, whilst still vainly trying to manhandle what was wrong back into the place it never fit.

i made my choices and i know they were right.

i just wish it didn't tell me what i already knew to be true.

we will both move along to pastures new, those that can hold all we are, whilst holding the memory of what could never be; you with frustrated, clutching hands, mine clenching with regret and pity.

everyone has a reason to stumble into each other's lives, and i can't speak for you, but you showed me how i should be loved, not just how i could be.

i hope one day you'll understand why i did what i had to do.

but until then i accept this pain as the sign that all things are as they should be.

i'm not cut out for a life like this.

i can't help myself. i just feel everything, all at once, and gaslight my brain into convincing myself that i have to remain in control to be worthy of love, to be worthy of being kept.

i'm not kept. i know i push people away, i push myself away from other people more often than not.

maybe i broke something in myself when i lost you, maybe that one last look finally stole the last piece of my heart from my chest. i'm still looking for it now, in hollow representatives, of people i wish i could love with deserving arms.

i sacrifice a brief attempt at happiness for the best of everyone, then play around in the ashes at my feet like i wasn't the one to light the spark and set it all alight. i draw squiggles in the dirt and wonder why it smells a certain way, why this acrid mess is staining my hands and permeating my skin.

i roll around, i play dead, i wake up and watch the clouds forming over the horizon.

i see the carcass of the shell i shed because it wasn't quite comfy enough for me, and wish my body had not grown enough that i could climb back into it, towards comfort and peace and solitude. i pursue a goal of certainty and peace, when both elude me constantly.

frantically searching for a destination that never gets any clearer or closer. taking the steps to stand by myself, only to find my legs a hollow crutch that threatens to give way as i move along.

i keep going, even though it hurts.

even though the pain saps the last of my strength from me, i know it was the only thing to do. the only thing i could do.

i play with the embers until my hands are on fire and my chest is aching.

it never gets any closer.

the rain comes down and wishes away the last of what i built, until the soot becomes the wind and the wind flies to the sky, carrying the weight of my regrets higher and higher.

maybe i broke something in myself when our eyes met.