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At some point of life, you just don't know where you are.
You feel lost. Scared. Hopeless. You find yourself in the perfect middle of a dangling rope – one end tied to the top edge of a cliff and the other favoring gravity; tied to an anvil.
How did you get here?

You were the backstage smile in every scrapbook photograph. You were the awkward, little kid sitting in one corner of your journey through preschool; you were that character people read about in a novel and never thought twice about. Unnoticed, safe and secure despite having so many complexes. But despite all that, you don't care. Because you still have you.

Years of being neglected and hurt by someone who seemed to understand are almost tolerable now. You don't flinch all that much at the thought. You made it alive after all; you always do. You are going to make it through.

Then, this life that you're familiar with changes in the blink of an eye – not even gradually so you'd have seen it coming – it just shoots right out of nowhere, suddenly making you the cover of that scrapbook where you blended in the background, taking your hand through the tough years of high school and making you the main character of a best selling story. There's this point in one's life when some distant kind of warmth creeps into you; where the cold death of your hands is instantly pink with life, where the opaqueness of your dark, rheumy eyes shines with the glisten of a full moon on a shimmering black Nile and where all those moments before this point come to you in quick rewind and hit you with one single question: how did I make it alive for so long?

You never accept that you're strong but you tell yourself you don't care (though you clearly do) because somehow pain is numbed out when this presence locks its comfort around you. You fly up to the seventh heaven, floating on your very own Cloud Nine, licking milk chocolate off the edge of your lip and soaking yourself in the irresistible pleasure of being heard with no worry or fear of ever making sense.
Of ever being neglected. You're overwhelmed by someone else's desire to love you and be there for you through thick and thin. Who has done that before? Not laughed at your perceptions on life, and people. Feelings.
It's just…too good to be true.

It's bliss. And it feels damned good up until the point you realize it's bliss. As soon as that epiphany hits you, your cloud thins. Next thing you know, you're falling endlessly at an unimaginable velocity, licking your own blood off the edge of your lip where chocolate once waited because of one simple word; doubt.

No one can ever care that much. No one can ever accept you so wholeheartedly, so fully, so perfectly. No one can know exactly what you want to hear or exactly what you're going through.
No one.
It's all a lie; a silly game being played with your head, all those fallacies, all those words, those week long conversations on nothing but emotions. But you block each memory out and each tickle of comfort you felt with every word that was uttered. You just keep falling from the heavens and just when you think the drop is infinite, you reach the painful conclusion that you're back on earth. You look in all directions to find those same people you saw everyday, just as normal. As if nothing had changed.

You panic.

The normalcy is suffocating. At that point you realize that falling from the heavens is not enough; you need to go deeper. Because its just too hard to hold on to yourself. And so you dig your own grave and fall from rock to rock to a deeper pit, hoping to lose yourself bit by bit by every boulder that cracks your head open, that somehow dispatches the pain, being you entailed.

The soil holds the material indulgences of those around you. Light souls. Light people. They laugh all the time and they seem so happy. Each particle of the earth forces open your mouth and chokes itself in you. Pretty soon, it hurts so much, you begin to tell yourself that this is what real happiness is. And you know the worst part?
You end up believing yourself.

There it is: happiness. In the palm of your hand. Your new life right in front of you. You take it, though the Reaper said you can't keep your past if this 'light' person is who you want to be. And before you know it, the cold silently creeps back in to this new 'light' world you live in.

And the warmth comes back for the shortest of times, when you catch her eye in a flooding crowd. That brings back the rush of memories, the warmth, the bliss, Cloud Nine, milk chocolate. But you can't take the overwhelming desire to go back. So you put on your metal armour and fight it all off with the power of spite; granting victory to your old pal, Disbelief, because no one, especially she, can never care so much; you never deserved it. You shoot arrows with words you don't mean, and things you've never said, regretting only the fact that it has come to this point where frustration and aimlessness is all you know.

Your paperweight world seems to leave you satisfied. You know why too; because it's not where you belong and because no one here knows who you truly are. Cloud Nine is your only abyss but you don't want to go back there because of a lie. The wall of glass is impenetrable anyway. Desire and determination are two different things. And even if you miss the warmth, it just seems too late now. No matter what that struggling-to-surface conscience may say. The transparent bulwark showing the hopes of the life you used to know [just her] only make the hole the rocks tore open in you hurt around the ragged edges.
Though you still see her staring at you after all this time, with that glimmer of hope in a child's eyes – with that same longing that's burning in your chest; to be you again.
But it's just so hard.

Because even if you don't acknowledge it, you still wait for the day that every trial, every test, every choking of your tears, every burning of your eyes – everything, will just seem worth all the trouble you went through. You still wait for someone to open their arms to you and say, "Come home". Because you still hope that every uphill climb, every lesson you've learnt gives you something in return instead of only taking people away and draining you altogether.
Because you still wish that every time you looked in the mirror you find the innocence with which you looked at it for the first time. Because face it, you wish that you wouldn't see that 'you' you see staring back at you into your eyes; a monster.

And she's still there. Out in the cold. Waiting on a miracle. And you know that there's only so much she can take. There's something different about the way she's looking at you now. You know what it is, but you can't bring yourself to believe it; she is going to crack.

The thunder roars as your world comes crashing down, your world of hopes and faith in this paperweight void slowly falls to nothing less than debris. She throws away her letters to you, drops her umbrella in the rain and walks away. Behind the wall of glass, you scream. You run and shout at the top of your lungs, because your heart is screeching that she's not just a reminder of who you used to be; she's the only reason you wanted to remain what you were. To not eradicate that completely.

You keep screaming, trying so hard to be heard, and you give her the two words she had given you once upon a February; save me.

She looks back at you; broken at soul but still devoted to her service. Her heart's crying and you can tell. She puts her hands to yours through the wall, that only makes you feel cold. You can't feel her warmth; the only warmth you ever knew. And acrimony then, is your only friend.
You punch at the wall so many times it hurts. You punch until your fist cannot be made anymore. You cry until there are tears no more. And you fall just as easily rain falls to the ground. Maybe it is too late. Perhaps it is...

You stay there for God knows how long, just lying there, staring into space behind your lids, afraid to open them now. Dry trails of tears leave their signs along your face. Given up on a plastic, paperweight world that was never really yours to begin with. When you open your eyes though, it's not so grey anymore.
The sun's almost up, the purple-orange hue of morning greets your squinting eyes. Dawn is breaking and the birds are out. As you lay on the ground, two things can't help but make your heart flutter; her sitting on the other side of the wall with that same waiting hope of a smile, and a huge crack in the wall made of glass.

It is then that it comes to you that those arms opening to you aren't far, neither those days you keep waiting for. And that mirror will show you what you want to see that day and that every uphill climb will be worth it. And believe it or not, some blessed day, that wall of glass will come falling down too.
-Resubmitted-

It's...long.
Yeah, sorry 'bout that.

The first real story I wrote. Rewritten because the original just made me want to stuff my mouth with dirt and die. Just thought you guys should know I'm still alive as a writer. Somewhat.

Written from someone else's perspective. And inspired by a video a mango linked me to.

Critique is very welcome. (:



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CarolinesEcho's avatar
Wow. This is really powerful. I liked it.