stepsbeforethefall

[stepsbeforethefall]

he smiled

his mouth full of bloody teeth

and you could almost taste the sharp copper that coated his tongue

/

you looked away

worried for the boy you raised

or worse, afraid of him

/

you couldn’t look anymore

tarnish the image of your baby boy

head full of curls

eyes full of curiosity

chubby fists full of makeshift toys

/

crown now dripping with sweat

eyes full of impossible greed

dirty nails pushing crescents into dirty palms

/

this wasn’t your boy. 

this wasn’t your son.

his own father no longer recognized him.

/

he saw this.

saw the fear in his father’s eyes.

/

but he pushed on as your warnings died on your tongue

/

he saw you

and knew there was no going back

/

his bloody smile grew wider

you watched as his eyes grew larger and his cheeks turned burning red 

and he was out of reach

/

you watched him

this monster wearing the skin of your son

/

and he never looked back

and you never looked away

as your son tumbled

from the sun

into the sea

/

and you didn’t turn back

[stepsbeforethefall]

Running a fast, straight, infinite line. Shoes pounding the pavement, or maybe it’s gravel or dirt or whatever it is you want it to be. Running so fast that it almost hurts but you’re chasing that feeling of pain. Or, rather, almost pain. You’re at your limit but you’ve been at your limit for as long as you can remember and there’s nothing you can do to fix that except keep on running.

Youth is full of forevers. I will be in love with you forever. I will hate you forever. I will feel this way forever. Youth is also full of nevers. I will never be happy. I will never do that. I will never love you.

Youth is hyperbole.  Youth is when someone learns what forever is but doesn’t know what it is. Youth is the stage when forever sounds pretty cool, actually, I would like to be that. Youth is the sprinting to the edge of the cliff  before the ground is suddenly gone and you realize you’ve been falling this whole time and you realize that forever is not pretty cool, actually. Youth is the sun, 30 minutes before sundown, when it is still bright in the sky, and the ideas of orange and pink and red and purple begin to streak their way across the sky.

It’s not fun being young. It’s also the most fun you’ll ever have. It’s the most emotions in the shortest amount of time. When nothing matters but everything matters as much as it possibly can.  And you don’t realize that both of those can coexist. Being young is full of contradictions and hyperbole and metaphors and juxtapositions and similes and forever and never. It’s taking every color you have and throwing them at the canvas as hard as humanly possible, and looking over to see that your neighbor has better colors and a better canvas and better tools and a better picture and you start to feel like you’re somehow not good enough. But they’re also looking over at you thinking the same thing.

There’s no way to explain this to yourself back then. You could travel back in time as much as you wanted until you wrecked every single timeline (even the ones that didn’t exist) and you would never be able to explain that forever isn’t what you want. Never isn’t what you want either. There’s no such thing as being invincible, but there's also no such thing as being impossibly shattered. When you’re young you don’t want to understand. You could, maybe, if you tried really hard, but what’s the point of running faster when you’re already sprinting as fast as you possibly can, your breath coming fast and hot and your heart pounding in your throat.

There's the uncomfortable in between that you suddenly realize one day you’ve settled into. There’s a dent in your sofa now where you sit. It’s not the best spot on the sofa, the best spot is about two inches over, but this spot fits you really well, actually, so no reason to move. There’s the moment you realized you stopped running. The moment you realize that you’re walking, not even jogging, just walking. You don’t want to live forever but you’re too young to die. Are you even young? 

You walk the line of making it through. You no longer stay up all night sobbing until you throw up, but you also don’t stay up all night singing your favorite song at the top of your lungs. You aren’t invincible anymore but you’re not feeble yet either. You threw away your blue-tinted glasses, but you can’t remember the last time you wore your rose-tinted ones, and you put a reminder in your notes app to get a new pair. You’ll probably forget the note. You probably forgot your favorite song, too.

Maybe some days you run again. Some days you strap your feet into your best shoes and sprint like your life depends on it. Some days it feels like it does. But it’s never the same. You can’t run like you used to. Maybe you’re imperceptibly slower. Maybe your heart is beating a beat too hard. Maybe your lungs are filling an atom less than they used to. But something is different. Something is not the same. You know what forever means now. You know what never means now. You stop running. You take your shoes off. You slide into the comfortably uncomfortable crevice between youth and the unknown. You tell yourself you’re still young. But you’re not running anymore.