Resolution.

We knew hell from the beginning, but maybe Hell didn't know us. Maybe we were just a figment of imagination that creationism forgot to explain away. Maybe we were just something smudged across the landscape of infinity because when you look in the mirror on Monday's you don't see the same man as a Sunday sweep has shown. It's a reality that can be altered as easily as raindrops, or fingerprints.

This is what it feels like to have your words in my head, singing through my fingers some forgotten melody that took two to recreate. I don't care how it got there, but it's staying this time, and I won't let you take your voice back; it's the only bit of you I can safely keep and not worry about forgetting. Or destroying.

I'd say you're mine now, but you're not, because the only bit of you I can claim as my own is still just my brain tricking me into belief. The only bits of you I can hold close are too close for me to hold. Your words are in my fingertips, but I can't connect with those in the same way my brain can, so you're closer to the insides of me than you are to the outside. That's depressing in more ways than one. I want to hold you, hear what your heart beats like when you're so damn frightened you can't breathe. I wanna be there when you choke on air, and maybe act like a lifeguard for once and whisper, I'm a professional rescuer. Can I help you?

'Can' because I don't know if CPR will bring your dead self back into living or if it's something that I have to resurrect through other means. You're afraid of prayer, but what about the woman with the words on her lips? Maybe this is candy-coated and I'm only just a girl with an inkling of what madness entails and how that works around me.

We match.

But sharing life isn't sharing life unless life actually passes between us and all I gave was air. All I got was dioxide - carbon formatting - and words that passed for truth. It's a sin to say I don't believe when all you wanted was an honest exchange but I'm not built for honesty out loud. I only tell the truth on the page, and even then I stretch it; my formula is lies on lies on lies until someone dies of overcharging.

But that'll be someone else, because if you're going to die it's going to be from overexposure.

And I'll be on the Certificate of Death.

Time: the first minute you actually looked, and saw.

Place: between the second glance and the fourth look away.

Purpose: accidental absolution.

This is a resolution I'm making here and in this now that some day I will say something that makes sense to the both of us and doesn't leave you feeling turned inside out or sideways. I'll say something that's got a measure of truth if there's enough salt on top, and then maybe you'll make yourself vulnerable just once, and things might get interesting. But that's just me hoping, and I don't hear your voice in my head.