Reflection Under Street Lights

The light outside is fading. Just a sliver of warmth remains, crushed by the chill of shadows. She doesn't mind. Leaves twist around her feet, gone as soon as they come. Her hair dances to a melody she can't hear. Her fingers are cold, shoved deep into her pockets. One pocket has a hole, she can feel it. She almost laughs at the irony. A hole in her pocket, a hole in her self. Something's changed and she doesn't know what it is. It left her this way, alive but not living. She can feel her feet take the steps, but she doesn't remember making a conscious effort to move them. She doesn't even remember leaving. Maybe tonight will be the night it changes, maybe in the morning she'll be able to feel again. Feel something other than that dull ache. She doesn't even know why she has the pain, just that it is always there. Has it always been there though? She knows it hasn't, but she can't see to remember what not having it felt like. Maybe it's the change, the dimly lit future ahead of her. Maybe it's him, again. Maybe it's the normal state things always seem to be in. Maybe it's all of these things, combined to create a cage around her. She's scared, but the panic never seems to make it to the surface. She is calm. Too calm. She catches herself doing it again, as she turns down the street. She's memorizing the way the trees look, the slope of the street, the smell. Yesterday she memorized his face, his smile. The day before, her room, her house. The way the walls felt as she ran her finger slowly along it. She's afraid that she will forget. Afraid that it will disappear before she even knows it's leaving. Afraid that one day it will be gone, part of a disorted dream some night.
And, yet, she's afraid that it will always be the same. That nothing will change, that the familier will hold her captive all these years to come. She wonders if she's crazy sometimes, if maybe something finally snapped. Somedays she feels like a hologram, ready to shimmer and fade away at any moment. Other days she feels solid, content even. Those days seem so short, so fleeting.
She reaches the door, knowing the smile will have to find a way to her face before she opens it. She'll have to pretend another night. Maybe, just maybe if she pretends enough nights in a row even she might start to believe it...

Turning of the Tides

Tears form but refuse to fall. They reject the path set before them, refusing to betray her. A hole, raw around the edges. Empty now, throbbing. She feels like she's slipping down below, an iron hand clamped over her mouth. No air. She begs for it to come back, like some lost lover. Come back. Don't leave her, she's afraid she'll survive. Afraid she'll live on with this apathy, this dull ache. Dreams pill up before her feet, like rocks on the coast that is so far away. They mock her. Hope eludes her, whispering only on those nights when she can't sleep. Only at night when the tears are no longer afraid, free to course down the curves of her face. Weak, broken. Oddly intact. It's worse that being destroyed, this living. How to fix it? How to get it back, that which continues to hide from her. No doubt it's moved on to someone else, some other soul ignorant of the void it will leave behind with it's inevitable departure. Fools. It never stays, always leaves. Leaves just when you need it most. Just when you feel safe. Safe. A stupid word.
The night is dark, light by some idle street lamp. Warm light on a cold night. She feels it again, that sharp stab of knowing. Knowing that she will be forced to move on. Forced to forget. Doomed by her mortality. The weakness of her memory. It will fade, the cause of what used to be. But she won't ever get it back. No, they're both gone, lingering just beyond her grasp. Does she want it back, if it must come at the cost of forgetting?
Words fill her ears, swimming around her softly. Music that tells her story, but the ending is wrong. All wrong. Not this. Not with so much time left. It was never to be this way. But who is she to say? The end, the path of her story...they are reveled only after the story has ended.
The light continues to shine, ever present. Always a light, on some distant shore. But not hers. Someone else's. Her light sputters, fights. She knows, but she doesn't want to.
She doesn't want to forget.