Chasing Austin

I want to change the world, but I can't hear what you're saying. I can't hear the words, honey, we need to think about our words. Yes we do, I say.

I don't know where it could take me - where these cold arms draw around me and taking leaps into galaxies beyond.

I might rather be alone, listening to the quiet, running down hills and learning how to skip stones. Playing at balloons and water slides.

Cashmere and crushed velvet. Sandcastles and marble.

Blood on my hands, love, blood on my hands. Wash me in the stream, washing clean. Of guilt, shame, hatred. Fear.

You killed me once, again and again. So you can only come back for more flesh, blood, glitter, gloss.

I find myself pushing away. I'm running out of my head with this violence to separate. I want a violent segregation of self. I feel it sometimes, like right now, when I'm humming girl. When I want to be walking in the warmth of heated summer concrete pathways to my next stop. When I want to be young again, foolish again.

When I want the world to flip once more, so I can taste that air. Because I had this peace. And I can't find my way back there, to that day, the day in the sun. It's funny how I wanted now then and I want then now. Just for a moment, just for a brief moment of an hour in the library, the weight of a research paper, the moment of deciding to walk in the rain or to disregard the night, the moment of he and me and she and piling on my hood to watch the fireworks, the moment of walking off the field to absolute silence, that moment of respect, tears in eyes, respect, the moment where nothing was right, and what I felt was right was never made right because I didn't know how to live.

And the truth is that I was so alone. So alone, which is why I was walking in the sun. I was walking on a Saturday in the middle of August or September, 21st to San Jac and Jester and the croissants and orange juice, then back to the mall, south mall, somewhere far because I couldn't fill the loneliness. I found solace in the sun, in the heat. Brazos. Find me home. If I could only feel like I belonged. Like I fit. Walking the streets aimlessly, churches and construction, green and trees, somewhere in between. Studies and books, music and notes of luck, hugs and smiles. Congratulations and disappears. Vines through the chain linked fence. Leaves reaching out to me, grazing my arms, making me miss you when I didn't even know you.

It's like I forgot who I was there for a moment, because I found myself outside of me, where I didn't belong. Shadow of a girl that I desire to chase after now. Take me by the hand and hug her. Whatever keeps her safe, whatever that is, once when it's determined...

Leaving nothing behind, I left it all behind.