writers_loft | A note to you.

Ok so this was an experiment. I looked up the titles of a bunch of Vertical Horizon songs, wrote them down on a list in an order, and tried to write an entire piece just going from thought to thought and title to title. It was sort of spontaneous. It's relatively short, just something I wanted to try.
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A note to you.

I'm clearly not everything you want. I understand that. You're the best I have ever had. To me you were always really more of a god, something that was never tangible no matter how hard I gripped your hands or securely held your arms or long I kept your lips. No shackle proved strong enough and that's ok because I'm still here. And you're not. And I've learned that that's ok because you fleetingly change like a muse and more than anything you're a shooting star, the one that leaves all the other stars behind; and as terrible as that is to feel, it's a terrible beauty because that fact that you're shooting through my life like a bullet or some sort of canon ball designed to leave the foundations as they are but completely useless in function, is what makes you beautiful. It's rooted in your nature and unraveling that thread from all the others to keep you will destroy just what I'm fighting so hard to keep.

So this is my resignation. An understanding resignation devoid of bitterness but a resignation all the same. Goodbye again. As much as you are a woman and strong and independent this really is the story of a girl who will never grow old or change and that's fine. Once you catch wildlife and catch it the beauty of the freedom it once held dwindles and all you have left is a crushed soul. And as much as I love that soaring, racing, stubbornly independent wildlife, capturing and imprisoning it is too vile for me. So while I'm tempted I'm going to do this to save me from myself.

Doing this, I realize I'll never know all of you. There are going to be frontiers I have not explored, moments I won't ever know with this angel without wings. And I'm barely breathing, drawing hesitant breaths but unable to drag myself down in my steps and keep me in this familiar place. Walking away is so much harder to do than being left behind because it's voluntary but I have to give you back on this grey sky morning where nothing shines and nothing darkens, the sky caught between darkness and light and indecision. But here it is, my heart in my hand, as I leave this miracle. I was lucky to have a chance but I'll be unfortunate if I stick around.

So here I am, taking this powerful, long, graceful blackbird and sending it up, myself shackled here to the ground. She's so high as I return to my sunrays and saturdays. She soaks underwater in the diffraction of light and all the different hues, watching me with regret as I trudge back across an empty marsh to a place where it's dry. It's neither of our faults. I just need something ordinary and need something extraordinary. I'm normal and you are anything but simple which is so strange because the things I love about you are why we can't be together.

When you cry, I normally stand there, watching as the world falls down with your sorrows but only you are untouchable by falling bricks and cracked concrete. I get struck and I bruise. I get cut and I scar. These differences won't go away no matter how you say you'll change. I've never asked you to. We'll just rest forever in that echo of what used to be. I clearly can't have you as you are and I don't want you to be anything else. So here is where I leave you, where I take my hand in my heart and leave this other world to return back to reality. Maybe I didn't know it at the time but I could never survive forever in your world, beyond you there is nothing to sustain me and I'd rather not be this parasite. Thank you for the odd moments and the untouchable days. Something tells me you will find everything you want and I hope to find something that I need. Yours truly.