how it has come to be.

A thin trail of words falls from your mouth as I trace my finger in a pattern across my knee, over and over. The repetition is calming, for the continual lines drain the weight from your words and as my vision blurs, the meaning quietly seeps away.

My mind drifts to the faces of those I miss, laughing, always laughing.

I turn the kaleidoscope and the world explodes in color, endless patterns that whisper a love no one can see. Always expressive but never the same. This version of me is jutted throughout time, cut into shapes where my shadow shatters the light. What you see is delicate, a careful framing of light on my careless features.

What is seen is not what I can see.

One and the same but never in line, for my version encompasses all of time, all of me crushed into one moment.

All that is seen is the present, a glimpse of time that is frozen in motion.

The tires strike the pavement and time stops, and suddenly time speeds on and the water splashes over my rainboots and leaks through the hole in the toe. I stand alone, one toe soaked, mesmerized by something I cannot see. Mental shots speeding and slowing, and the music dictates my steps and I carry on.

Crunching the snow piles, splashing the puddles, letting go of it all.

What became of my fears, now so filled with a frustration of technicalities?

Age creeps slowly, realizations of frugality and worthlessness fill my vision and I stray away, to be on my own, away from it all. Aloneness is comforting, quiet and peaceful, away from your words and your version of me.

Not all aloneness is loneliness.

Not all words are truth.