and she's biting her lip

It was probably close to two in the morning and I laid on my bed listening to the whir of the space heater and central unit, but I was still shivering. There are some chills you can just never rid yourself of, can you? I bit my nails and hated myself for it, but it doesn't really matter anyway. My eyes burned and I felt like I should be doing something, just anything, so I took to the streets. I thought about walking miles and ending up at your doorstep, but it was a waste time and breath and just all too cliche.

So instead I just walked around the block a few times. I ended up at a grade school for fifth and sixth graders. I sat in a swing, gripped the cold metal chains because my palms were clammy. I pushed my feet around in the gravel for a few hours, pushed my forehead against the freezing poles to calm my fever and went home.

I got inside and my nails were blue but I could feel my hands anyway. My shoes were beginning to get holes in them and I just thought, great, another passage for this damn ice air to go to me. It had settled into my bones by then, though, so I just embraced it and went on with life.

Those moments of honest to goodness breathlessness is what I live for. Just spur of the moment things that you don't even realize are perfect at the time. Those are the best. They make your heart race and your hands shake. But it's kind of hard to distinguish that from just the unsteady heartbeat of this body that I've pushed too far. So sometimes I just sit and close my eyes and shake my head to try and clear those clouds. I push my feet into the ground in one last attempt to keep from just lifting up.

But sometimes at night when I lay in the bed trying to sleep I can almost feel myself slipping. I can almost feel my soul trying to leave me. Sometimes I try to cling to it and bring it back, no, please don't go just yet. Other times I just focus on the feeling and don't think anything. I let the clear cold feeling of the wind circulate through my veins in hopes of it being the only thing inside.

I just don't know what to do anymore. Sitting cross legged on hard woods floors and smoking all day can't be all there is. Or is it? The feeling of floor pushing up through your skin as you lay down and watch tv through stale smoke becomes really ritual, but it's familiar and it's comforting. But sometimes that space heater is just too artificial and I need to breathe some life into these limbs. I can't do it on my own, but I'm just too damn stubborn to ask for help. I'm too afraid of holding my hand out to you only for you to turn your back on me and leave me on the floor. We're just too young for all this damn thinking and I just want to go somewhere that feels like home.

I always seem to be searching for something, some unknown point or person. It never works. No one seems like that breath-taking being that's "the one" and no place seems perfect around here. There's always something missing, something that I can't find in their eyes, or their words, or their touch. And the places seem too cramped. Or just all too big and open and I can't fill it up. Am I too much or not enough? Just right? That never seems to be an option. Why can't things just be a multiply choice test, 25% chance at getting it right. Am I right?

I'm never coming back once I leave, I just want you to know this. You blink and turn your head. I'm already forgotten and it's a lost cause. I'm moving on to find more moments in life, and you don't seem to be in any of them. I'm sorry, love, I've got to be moving on and I've just to brush you away too. I've got to wipe off those lingering fingerprints you left on me - oh god, they were embedded deep. I hope I left streaks burned into your sides for eternity. I hope I left my mark on you for good and god I hope it hurts you more than anything. This town ain't big enough for both of us, but I'll be leaving soon and you can have this shithole as soon as I'm gone.

But don't come looking for me. I'm changing my name, I'm changing my life, I'm erasing my past and you might as well do the same. I take it you've already started without me.