Pandora's Box.

I read the graffiti on your wall, hoping for some clue to the inner workings--to see if I can decipher what's going on inside your head, nowadays. I don't know you anymore, but I'm pretty sure we both knew that would happen. You thought you wouldn't change--I prayed you wouldn't, but I knew inside that time takes prisoners, and runs them through the mill until they're unrecognizable as former selves.

It's just in passing, where I think I'll see you. I've still got the mental imagery wrapped up inside of me--that's why it's hard to let go right now. Once we've met in person and I've got my new vision of who you aren't anymore, then I'll be free. It's just the digging down inside, to find who I can't be any longer. It's not you, it's me.

But I'm still Pandora's Box, suffocating at the bottom wrapped in hope that maybe things aren't as fucked up as they seem. That maybe I'll wake up and these past months will have all been just a dream I didn't know I was having. If that happened, I'm not sure what I would do. If I'd even remember long enough to heed the warning. If I would know better with a second chance.

I'm too good at screwing things up, messing up on purpose-by-accident. I'm too damn perfect when it comes to imperfection that it screws with everyone's head. Look for the upside, and the down will come find you, courtesy of my mind. It's just the way I turn, now. To the left, to the left when the world slings right, but we never meet around the corner because you're always just out of sight.

I want to meet up again, to hang out again and maybe reminisce, but it's true the future still looks like this: empty to the point of no return, and no future hopes. Already tried all the ropes, and each one I pull has come untied, from wherever it had been stationed. Fell at my feet, in the bottom of a great pit they call Despair.

There's no way out but up, and up isn't where I'm going.

I met a stranger and relearned the meaning of danger when it comes to mental attraction. I'm waiting to be broken into fractions of who I was again. I knew I gave over too much when it came to you the first time, but I've been told I can't do things halfway, and even though I warned you, I don't think you really knew what you took when you pushed me away from you.

The offer to return came too late, maybe. Or perhaps too soon. I wish we'd talked about it better, that I hadn't assumed that freedom would let you come home to me. You weren't the wild falcon I'd dreamed. Not a second time. Only one freedom flight per lifetime, wasn't it, love? Or am I not allowed to call you that anymore? You're not "love" to me, now, are you? Or are you? I still don't know--it's your past self I hold more dear than you could know. Pain and cure wrapped up in black and white rainbows.

I'm Pandora's Box. She opened it in curiosity, and screwed the world over. I'm made for those with curiosity and a healthy dose of insanity--anyone brave enough to lift the lid gets a treasure trove of trouble. Or maybe not, anymore--if Pandora opened her Box a second time, would there be more malign influences lurking inside? Or is one great failure enough for a lifetime?

I keep kicking myself for trusting, because I'm terrible at it. I know when to pull back, but it's only force of habit, and I tried it too soon, I think. Way back to the first time I tried to make you cry, to see if you were really so attached--to see if I could hurt you at all. The first mistake you made in tangling me up was resisting. Tears tear everyone away. There had to be some pain somewhere, so I made up for it, with my blood and my cries--

Maybe I'm just lying to myself now. If you had broken down, if I hadn't just heard the sorrow in your voice when you were in Florida that one time, would this all have been easier? I move away from the emotions I see in human beings because for the longest time I couldn't replicate them. Jealousy, maybe. But now I'm wondering if it's just mysterious to me, whatever seems most opposite. Most opposed to what I know and can hold.

You're intriguing still, but it's like my first year of college, where I only remember the sun and the sunshine from the beginning, and some sudden transition into windfall and darkness that doesn't make sense. There must have been rainy days sometime in August when I first came out here; why do I only see the glow of gold off green grass? My memories are brighter than they could have possibly been: the present doesn't shine half so bright, and tonight, it's not shining at all.

I'm locked into recall that won't let me go. I should be doing something constructive, not destructive, like remembering, but I can't seem to help it. If I was spelled into forgetting, maybe things would work out. But I'm cursed into holding onto the past until it fights back and strangles me in revenge. I wish I could renege on the past, but maybe I wouldn't go back as far as you think--maybe I'd go back farther, and take away the time when I learned how to swim, just to see if I'd end up in the criminal justice system.

Maybe we might have met sooner, then, and this ending could have come about when it didn't matter so much. I could have fought with loss over study hall quiet time instead of while trying to prepare for exams. I don't need this memory, but it's so much like last year all over again. I'll tell you right now--losing her and losing you is the same.

I had a class the day after she said she never wanted to see me again. I don't have any recollection of having been there, but everyone says I was. I don't have notes, no date, no proof to myself--I might have been drunk on confusion and insensible. I don't remember anything from that week, and the memories of the month are hazy. What is it about April that makes my memory lazy? This is the time when recall likes to fuck with me, to see just how much it can take away before I start to go crazy.

I'm not as balanced as you might think. And I knew I gave too much away from the start. It's an art form, learning how much to keep, and how much to let go. I've never had much practice; everyone abandons me. I didn't have to learn when I was young because they always returned those pieces.

But I can remember when you were sleeping in my bed, when I woke up and had to go get my head checked out, for a shrink to tell me what she thought was wrong with me. I was in a green room--hunter green--with scratches on the wall and a red Barbie high heel lying in the middle of the desk that was between us, on a little scrap of red paper that could have been a pretend rug. She started to ask me about leaving, and loss, and I broke down for the first time in front of someone since I don't remember when. I had to escape.

Dissociation is a fascinating talent--you can become anything you want, and the outside world can't touch you. /the thing is, it mostly only works when things hurt outside, like when you're taking knives to your skin. Then the magical workings of your mind let you go inside, deeper, where it's safe. Where you can't feel anything anymore. Your outside goes comatose, like you've overdosed on safety.

She woke me out of my trance with her hands--not touching but searching, just waving at me until the motion took me from where I wanted to be. Away. She asked what it was, and I told her it was nothing, nothing. Studied the rug until I could keep the tears at bay, and then I looked her in the eyes to say it was all part of imagination. That I was doing what I could to keep life interesting. I didn't know how very right I was, back then, but now I do know, mostly. She let me go after telling me chaos was part of what defined me. I don't think she lied to me.

Broken into two halves--one part that never wants to be alone, and another that can't catch enough solitude. Where you're alone, you can't be hurt; am I right, love? (That word again--you'll ask me not to say it, I'm sure, but for now you're not here, and I don't have to answer to your fears anymore.)