The Void
A gallery of all of the little creative in betweens.
Runaway
I have this habit.
This bad, bad habit.
See, I run away
from home.
Whether that home is a place, a person,
a memory lying broken in your lap on a quiet night on the westside, the taste of my salty tears trapped in your denim lap.
I’ve run away from home before
A few times actually
I’ve run away from you before
A few times actually
I always seem to run as soon as you see me.
and you always saw me.
Like something ugly tucked away in the shadows.
even though I know you don’t mind the dark
Like clouds in the sky I may be able to disappear in the night, but just as the sun shines on a new day and butterflies take flight. I am back in your gaze.
So I run away because I want you to see my broad shoulders instead of my weeping eyes
So I run, everywhere, anywhere but here hoping that the afterimages of my horrid contortions form something beautiful to you.
With Virgil and Homer by my side I will run
Into disfunction
Into distortion
Into agony
Into abuse.
Because for some reason it is so much easier to run into hell than to be
still
in love.
And you were my first love.
I have this habit.
This bad, bad habit.
See, I run away
from love.
I always thought of love as this grand expression.
The fireworks of desire and passion
endearing nicknames
matching tattoos
illusions of grandeur
ballads and odes to a cosmic connection
but you…you just… saw me
truly saw me
The type of seeing that isn’t present in a painting, that can’t be penned poem, that can’t be put journal 1000 pages thick.
you just saw me.
and you loved me.
and so I had no other choice but to run.
And I watched you watch me watch your heart break as I ran away
Ran away to motion
motion which begets friction
friction which begets static
static which begets fire
and like a sick exhibitionist i made you watch as those hellish flames consumed me.
But you still… saw me.
Through the water in your aquarian eyes bearing my refracted light
you never averted your gaze.
you never abandoned our love.
But I did. Thinking that once I figure out how to suffocate these flames, then i’ll finally be able to breathe.
But only after I took the air out of the room did I realize it was that same air which sustained my breath.
That breath that is still. That is constant. That gives you life. That gives you love.
And no matter how much I wished for that air to return, it never did. never truly.
Because I ran a little too far. Just over the horizon of your view.
and you finally averted your gaze.
They say time heals all wounds. But time is never linear. My present constantly informs my past and as the scars of a past flame keloid, I find knowledge in my faults. And direction in my ways.
in my love.
in my still.
in my home.
But I still remember the warmth of your air, the sweet taste of it on my lips in the morning, the sound of it in your voice as your guitar sang with you, the smell of it in clouds of smoke we blew together. I could never forget your home.
But i’m a runway. and runways don’t get to go back home.
