Timelines

The time wasn't right and the dial wasn't set but the alarm went off anyway

And a boy with far more to learn than he had to lose learned exactly that

He thought his insides were being torn out

He thought his skin was being scrubbed raw

He thought he was two different people brutally fighting through each other to earn passage into adulthood

He thought everything

He thought everything and remembered nothing except the despair

And three years later he sat in the same body (or at least the most similar one there was) in the same spot (or at least the same state) and remembered everything

He remembered the people he ignored

He remembered the time he had lost

He remembered the sounds he had never heard; having instead deferred to slow ballads he fancied his own

He remembered all the things that never happened

And he smiled a smile that captured his entire face in undeniable relief

Because somehow, he was the only thing that had changed

His contrived pain and silent drama was offset by the thing he decried the most

He had never been happier for his own insignificance

And he forgot the despair

-

There was nothing more for him to contemplate, so he walked

The trees were the same

The grass was the same

Apparently nobody had thought to plant any flowers

A shame, he thought.

He walked for some time until the sunlight grew tired and slouched, lazily bumbling through trees and knocking into buildings such that it could hardly be responsible to illuminate his path ahead

The occasional streetlight did its best to pick up the slack

He looked at his feet and they were looking straight ahead, so he continued to walk forward

The world was the same as it was three years ago

A pedestrian approached and he felt an urge to be perfectly unaffected by them

He looked at his feet and they were looking straight ahead so he looked forward

She was beautiful

She was looking at her feet

He looked at her feet

Her feet were not as beautiful as her face, so he looked at her face and recognized her

She passed him in silence, making a line towards the exact spot he had just come from

He stopped and unconsciously twisted his mouth in thought

But his mouth did not think for itself so he did not speak

His feet thought for themselves and they swiveled to  face the back of the girl

But their autonomy did not usher any sentience to his mouth, so he watched and said nothing

She continued to walk silently, further back in his past settings, and though it strained, the streetlight could not contain her any longer

He turned and resumed walking

He wondered if he had ignored her before

He wondered if he had loved her before

He wondered how those two thoughts could exist mutually

He walked into a man

He was struck by the novelty of having been completely blinded by his thoughts and cocked his head to the side

The man was struck by his elbow and stumbled on 

He was struck with embarrassment and apologized to the man

The man graciously forgave him and continued on in a hurried walk, and it became clear he was following the girl

The boys feet moved on anyway

He did not care much about the man

-

He reached the door that he had left from and entered

There was no way of telling how he had circled perfectly back but he was too engrossed in other issues, for he now remembered everything, and everything is a lot to think about, no matter the relevance

He remembered the girl and he remembered the path she was on

And he remembered the man and how he walked not on a path but in pursuit

But he remembered everything, so none of this was surprising

What was surprising was that the path the girl was on was perfectly familiar to him

And it wasn’t just her route

What was surprising was that the the girl he had seen was perfectly familiar to him

And it wasn’t just her face

What was surprising was that the man he had bumped into was perfectly familiar to him

But he didn’t recognize him and he couldn’t remember him

And he remembered everything, so the man was forgotten

He walked up the stairs, for entering the door alone was clearly an insufficient maneuver to reach his bed, and he remembered that he was tired

Most of the stairs took no notice of him and the ones that did were far too beaten down to audibly protest his weight

His bed was in the same spot it had been since he moved it two years ago

He remembered having felt despair in the bed

But he did not remember the despair

And he remembered everything, but the despair was not forgotten

There were more memories to the bed

There were better, passionate memories that he thought of immediately after the despair

And he thought of them and wanted to forget them

He did not want to forget them as much as he wanted to forget the despair, but he had already forgotten the despair and it would have been redundant of him to wish to forget something he had already forgotten

He did not loathe redundancy, but he was tired, so he slept.

-

When he awoke, the blinds were up and so was the sun, unapologetic over its hasty exit the night before

The streetlights were too tired to care

And he was too oblivious to the feelings of the streetlights to notice

The streetlights still just stood there

What he did notice was that the girl was on the other side of the window

But hardly right outside his window

The man was still there too, and he had caught up to the girl

They were kissing, and the emotion showed on the man’s face

The girl held an icy gaze

The boy remembered this kiss, though he did not remember either pair of lips

He did not remember many lips

He bit his own and he remembered his own, and he remembered an icy kiss

He remembered all the despair from when when he was alone for three whole years

And he remembered that he wasn’t alone

His room was too bright so he stepped into his closet

It hadn’t been touched for a while

There was a poorly hidden book with a silver scribble on a hard black cover and he opened it

And he read all the things that he used to want to forget

And he realized they were the only things he wanted to remember

And he ran to the girl

She was still on the path outside and so was the man

They both beamed and looked into the sky, with a naive look of hope for everything to stay the same

Even though things were fucking awful

And the boy ran to the girl and asked for her ear

The man consented with a smile on his face and a frown on his brow

Let me tell you a story, he said

-

this is a tale of a boy with too many titles for which to make songs

and a girl who’d been singing his songs all along

he said, come back inside so you’ll hear all my stories in full

she said no and turned as if the man behind had given her a pull

he stopped her and warned her of the storm passing through

she told him, well then my moments with him will be few

she motioned to the man but her face stayed the same

and the boy went back home to come inside from the rain

his castle of memories was unwelcoming at best

and he felt strangled by the feelings and thoughts on his chest

but he waited at the window from March to October

and then October to March for her to come over

he was cursed to remember and thus was bound by his past

but he grew sick again and started to forget fast

at the end of his misery she decided to come over and talk

but when he went to spill all of his thoughts, he balked

so she sat in the grass and he struggled not to fawn

and tell of his times coveting her while mowing the lawn

it wasn’t fair, he decided, to tell her these things

so he muted the song the girl of ice made his heart sing

he sat at the fire and realized he was burning up

and she offered a breeze and a cold drink for his cup

he laughed and asked how she could give him a breeze

so she got up and left, and lo, he could feel her leave

from that day on the boy grew less clever and more nice

but he would never again be her boy of ice

-

The girl looked blankly into his eyes

He looked back with an expression that was anything but blank and waited for her to speak

There was sweat on his brow and he was tired from running, but he felt further from sleep than he had ever been

She told him some things were better left unsaid

And admitted she had no idea if that was one of those things

He hoped she would say it wasn’t

He hoped she would come inside

He hoped the man would leave

She stepped to the side and rocked her head back and forth

She was impatient with her brain

She was impatient with her feelings

Eventually her mouth grew impatient with her silence and she spoke

She told him when she saw him now she could remember being on the same path

He asked her to come inside

She told him that the path was never as bright or as dark as it seemed

He asked her to come inside

She told him the only thing to do was keep walking, and eventually, he’d know what he’d wanted and remember how to forget

He asked her to come inside

She told him to listen

It began to rain and he hopped around like a flickering candle, dodging it’s eventual demise

She stood still

The man watched with a frown on his face and his brow

The boy told her he’d forgotten his despair

She told him that was great

He looked at her feet and they were not beautiful, but he couldn’t bring himself to look back at her face, for he was embarrassed and it was raining progressively harder

He asked her to come inside

She told him that she had asked him that before

He remembered

She told him she was freezing

He was burning up

He thought of the perfect words to tell her and swore to himself not to say them

He thought of the worst words to tell her and considered the effect they might have

He thought of some words that were in between

He asked her to Come Inside From The Rain

She said, no

He said, okay.