The one good thing about rain is concealment.
It had been a frail and distant morning. My hands shook as I clamored about, papers in neat stacks now sprawled in a haze across the floor. My glasses sat carelessly amidst the mess as I pulled at my hair, frantically scattering the papers faster than before.
"What are you looking for?" A voice asked behind me. Ignoring it for now, I sank to my knees, feeling weak.
"Get up. You're overreacting."
I turned to look at Maye, her face stony and arms crossed over her chest.
I couldn't tell her what I was really looking for. In all honesty, I barely knew what I was searching for at this point, but I persisted onward. Reflecting back now, I was looking for a single word. I had written it so many times, but this one instance was what drove me insane.
My head was spinning heart pounding.
"And I worry one day you'll wake up and you won't know me."
I hated it. The fact was, you had already forgotten. It was one thing to forget, and one to pretend, which is what I had been doing. I had been faking for such a long time, it became harder to pull myself back to reality.
"And I worry one day I'll wake up and you won't know me."
I felt it when it happened. Just before, it was like a flash of lightning across a dark sky, just momentary. But it was long enough.
It was long enough.
DISTANCE: noun, the amount of space between two things or people
It wasn't enough at the same time.
Time and distance function so similarly, it's hard to keep track of one without the other. The farther I ran from you, the closer I got to the truth. The further I ran from the truth, the more and more I found myself drowning in memories, screenshots, letters. No matter what I tried, it was never enough. Maybe I wasn't enough for the time in the first place.
Maye watched, bemused, as I gave up on my hunt, letting myself fall into desperation.
"You don't need to keep searching, it's gone."
If it was truly gone, why did I feel this way?
I wanted that word, yearned for it. But I know I'll never find it.
YOU ARE READING
Colors Behind the Glass ✓
Poetry[COMPLETED] Lonnie has been through several life-changing events. The most impactful is the death of their abuelita and the loss of someone close to them as they came out as non-binary. They have struggled with coming to terms with these two facts...
