The Lights Will Guide Me Home

By

There was so much noise. And lights. It was all blinding me. But I fought on pushing through the crowd trying to get ahead. Trying to get away. I hear our friends calling me, and as hard as I denied it, I only wanted to hear yours. But if you did call for me, it all got lost. Just like you and me once upon a time. Lost in all the noise and the too bright hopes and dreams.

I pushed on ahead. To get away from you, and everyone, as much as all the memories. Suddenly someone pushed me and I stumbled. When I looked up, I saw the shock of black hair and the glasses and those sad brown eyes and I was transported back to times when I knew them like the cities we traced promising we would go together one day.

“I’m so sorry miss are you okay?”

And I smile at the stranger I did not know with the hair and the glasses and eyes that I knew too well. I wiped my tears and smiled reassuringly at him and walked on.

I wonder how time has made fools of us. We’re so busy waiting for the right time to come or for the hurt to pass that we forget about the “nows.” You sit there waiting for it to get better whilst time erodes you of all your feelings, your empathy, your hope, your love. And you’re empty. Movies, dramas, books convinces you that there IS life in you, even if its life you’re living vicariously.

Empty empty empty.

I wonder if you’re waiting too. Waiting and thinking of me. Wondering who chases away the bad dreams I have now. Wondering if I still had silly dreams of growing up to be a rockstar wanting to achieve world peace. Wondering if I outgrew the too short haircuts I always ALWAYS seem to get. Wondering if I was lying in bed waiting and thinking about you too.

And I hear music around me, familiar and suffocating at the same time as I remember all the time after when I played it on repeat to forget you. Forget me. Forget that you let go. Let go of me.

Abruptly the music is cut off. There is a scream. I am jolted back to the presence. There is a stampede. And suddenly there are people running and yelling. I panic. The fear is so tangible I feel it circling my throat, pressing in.

I yell your name. Please. Oh God. I don’t even know why. I frantically yell your name as I’m being pushed by the crowd. And as I look behind me I suddenly see you pushing your way to me, yelling my name too. Your arm’s outreached, fighting to get to me. And in that too bright crowd with everybody pushing me further away, I look back to you, and reach for you once again. And again and again. Knowing that once I get back to you, I’ll be safe again. That you’ll keep me safe.

There was a painful jolt to my right as someone stumbled into me and in an instant I was wide awake. I took in my dark surroundings, my fan lazily swinging above me, the unsteady beat of my heart, my arm still desperately reached out.

I put my arm back down.

I breathe in. And breathe out.

And breathe in. And breathe out.

I close my eyes breathing deeply the smell of you in my thoughts. And slowly fell back into a space or a time where I was relieved from feeling that aching pain in my chest, at least, at least, for a while.

I dreamed of you last night. After so long. After so much has passed. I thought I’ve let go. After so long. After so much. But I dreamed of you last night and instead of moving on I was looking back and reaching out for you again. But if I had to remember one thing. Just one thing. It was that the whole time I was looking back at you, you were looking at me too, your hands outreached, fighting the time that mocks us, to get back to me once again.