hide and don't seek.

i remember how we'd go to the park.
the swings were rusty, remember? you were always the one pushing me in the autumn air, and i was always the one giddy with laughter. when we got tired, and our breaths came in shallow gasps, we'd go play games of hide and seek.

[your favorite hiding place was behind lies.]

sometimes i found you, crouched low to the ground smiling up at me. i was always scared that you wouldn't come out when i  called 'i give up now.'
but you always gave yourself away to me, sometimes unwillingly.

[your deceptions were see-through, once i looked past the velvet curtains in your eyes]

.

i remember what missing you felt like.

it was like the music in my heart stopped playing. it was like i was pulling my hair out and biting my nails until they were bleeding and i was screaming, 'please come back, please come back.'

and when you did, i wished you hadn't.

this is how you managed to kill me, tearing pieces away from exactly the right places,
ripping, cutting, slashing my insides until i ran out of tears to cry. did you build your biting words just for me,
or were we just made for each other, like two halves of a whole?

[you already knew how to bruise my soul inside and out.]

.

we used to be laughter on the playground; the taste of wind when you're driving on the highway and your windows are rolled down; the warmth of holding hands and friendship.

now all we ever seem to be is out of time and out of luck.
and now i'm sitting on the swing, but it's winter, and i'm not laughing, and you're not pushing the swing.
i'm starting to wonder where you faded away to,

because when it was my turn to hide, you never came looking for me.