The
sun has set on me,
the moon is full and bright, and as I walk home, my mind races. Images flash by, ideas, what-ifs, but-whats, my mind is a total mish mash of junk, and I don't know what to think anymore. I hear a car scream to a halt infront of me... another metre or so and I would have been a stain on the road. I'm still standing, but only just. Thoughts of what I've just been told, things that I had wanted to do, but had never had the guts to actually go through with, they drive me crazy... I know what I want, but I know I cant have it... and it hurts. But I'm a true survivor.
I'm still standing
.
Why didn't I take that chance? It could have worked, it really could have, but I guess I'll never know. It's just something that I will have to live with. I feel like a little kid, but you would not think it to look at me, I feel that I have been through a war, a war that I have lost, but I made it out alive, almost in one piece, almost, but not quite. Part of me still lies there on the battlefield. Ripped, sodden, trampled on... a small part of me, small, but important... I know why I didn't try it. I love her. I respect her. That's why. Not because I was scared. Not because I didn't have the guts. Because I didn't want to hurt her. But it hurts me instead. But so is life, I live with it.
.
I hate walking home this time of night... its not light enough to see where you are going, but not so dark that the street lights do not come on. I get to the park, and I do something that I have not done since I was a kid... I run the whole way across, not wanting to look back, driven on by the eternal fear of what may be following me, by not wanting to let it catch me, pushed on by the adrenaline I collapse at the other end, my heart pounding, my chest bouncing in and out, feeling as if it's going to explode at any second, my pulse is racing, my eyes are wide and bright, dark black pinpricks, silver in the moonlight... no one is around me, and I scream out to the stars, praying, hoping, wishing for a response, not knowing if I will get one... I feel scared, terrified not by my surroundings, but my my situation... I'm in the middle of a huge city, screaming at the night sky, tears running down my face, and my cheeks still red from my run across the grass. I am surrounded on all sides by people going about their business... in London, you are never far from anyone... but still, I am alone... Just me, nothing else.
.
As I leave the park, I walk along the paving stones that line the long wall that runs its length, and for no reason, I walk along only every other stone, as if the others would explode if I were to step on them...
hop
skip
jump
hop
skip
jump
I feel like a kid again for the second time tonight, and as the wall comes to an end I jump off the end and fall to my knees, scraping my hands, drawing blood. It's only a scratch. But the blood still oozes from the cut, still glistens in the moonlight, but there is no pain... the alcohol in my system has taken care of that, not to mention the pot I have taken in, passively smoking all night... the blood runs down my hand, and collects on my bracelet, the gold links flowing into each other, is hard to tell the blood form the gold in this light. Somehow, I have managed to stager home, and I fumble with the keys in the lock, I notice that the porch light is still on, and I look at my hand. Not bad, just a graze, but the blood is all over my sleeve. A quick wash under the tap and I'm fine, and as I get changed out of my clothes and into a tee shirt ready for bed, I decide not to go... instead, I go back downstairs, and out into the garden, and there, I sit. I sit down on the cold stone patio in my tee shirt and boxers, and I look up...
.
Something so simple, and yet so fulfilling. This time, there is no screaming, no shouting or cursing, this time, there are only tears. Simple tears at the beauty of it all, above me the stars stood still and naked, and as I sat there, looking up, waiting for the Pleiades to rise from the East and make its way towards the moon, for what felt like a moment, I blacked put, whether overcome by the alcohol, pot, and lack of blood sugar, or by the grandness of the view I do not know, but in those moments that I was unconscious, it seemed as if the sky had melted before me, and as I came to, there were no stars to see... instead, there was the sun, slowly making its way up over the trees in the distance, ready to carve out another day, to take lead me to another night sky, while in the far west, I saw the faint outline of the moon, still hanging in the early dawn, slowly moving out of focus as the sun rose, both of them, silent and still, watching me...