Of Broken Mirrors and Scraping the Skies

Something I wrote on a whim, inspired by the song "Go" by Boys Like Girls, which I posted above if you guys want to listen to it. I suggest you do. <33

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I’ll write a story out of you one day.

And it won’t be one of those gushy love stories…you know the ones. The ones I used to write for you all the time. The ones about your eyes, your freckles, the way you held me when I was alone.

This one’s going to be about your escape.

I was never quite sure what you were escaping from. It could have been me. It could have been your abusive mom, your alcoholic good-for-nothing dad, it could have been that bratty little kid down the street. But I don’t think it was any of those things, not really.

I think you were escaping from your cat.

He still meows at night, you know. As if he’s waiting for you to come back. But it’s a dejected kind of meow, a I-knew-you’d-do-this-eventually-you’re-your-father’s-son kind of meow. He still tears up your pillow case once in a while and hides in the deep pocket of your sweatshirt that I left hanging in your closet the night you left. I used to change the pillow cases after your cat ripped them up, but then I gave up and he and I got along a little better.

I think you were escaping from that tree house.

You used to bring me there, once in a while. You used to bring me there and let me hold you while you cried. I would try and comfort you, and we would both try and ignore the broken beer bottles that your mother had thrown at you the first night she saw you up here after your dad had left. They were his, after all. We tried to pretend it was okay, but neither of us could bring ourselves to throw out the shards of glass.

I think you were escaping from your soon-to-be history.

They always said you had everything in you. The modesty, the brains, the ambition, the imagination. They said you were going to the top, you were going to be something, they were going to be proud of you. I guess you just didn’t have the courage. Or maybe your genetics were just too strong after all, even though you swore they weren’t.

You could’ve lived them down, you know. Just because they were failures, alcoholics, abusive, lacking commitment. You…were past commitment. You threw yourself into your life heart and soul, forgetting to breathe and taking that last leap until all there was left to do was fly. And that was you.

I guess you expected too much from yourself. I guess it scared you. I guess you thought that running away would help everybody forget about you, let you start a new life, without any ties.

I guess you forgot about me.

When you get wherever you’re going, I bet you’ll realize that it’s really no different from here. But that ambition is going to sneak up on you, and you’re going to stay for a while, realizing you really have the whole world in front of you. That flying really isn’t that hard until you stop.

And I’ll wait for you here. I’ll feed the cat, make sure that tree house stays just the way you left it. That broken glass will be collecting dust, but you probably will have found out that happiness is usually found in whole bottles, anyway. Maybe you’ll find happiness is found in whole people, too, and that only the broken ones can break you.

There are still a few unbroken ones here.

I’m going to stay. I’m going to stay, and I’m write about the boy who was born flying, who fell, and who’s learning to fly again. Because I know that when he learns to fly again, he’ll learn that he never really fell at all.

And then I’m going to smile.

End