Little Spider

"Thoughts of you spin silk webs of what could have been, a poisonous spider dancing between my knuckles."

I still think about you. Some nights, I sit by my bedroom window in my underwear, staring at the train tracks, watching cars blur by on the freeway. Thoughts of you spin silk webs of what could have been, a poisonous spider dancing between my knuckles. How pathetically delicate I can be with monsters that don’t know how to love a dead girl.

Does my life mean something to you?

The lies I had to tell myself to make that answer "yes" were endless. I teetered between the sterile walls of a padded room and the unforgiving grit of the sidewalk. Countless times, I stood at the edge of delusion, ready to jump, praying for the will to do it. My heart would encourage me whispering, “Go ahead, you’ll see! It’ll all be the same. You’ll see him again, just the same!”

I pushed her away—many times. Not for me, but for her. The heart can’t bear what the mind already knows. Intuition, always one step ahead, never hesitates with the truth. The ego, desperate to protect, spins its fairy tales of self-preservation, weaving delusions to shield us from our mortality.

This web is black, tarred, unbearable. The web we’ve woven drowns out the hum of the train tracks. I sit on the edge of my headboard, my toes brush against the black silk pillowcase you once rested your head on. You're here, but I can’t touch you. If I’m being honest, I don’t think I ever did.