One-Hundred Days

I miss daisy chains and trampolines, seeing innocence shine from faces that haven’t known what it’s like to love and lose. I miss feeling alive for once, feeling free beneath the trees that painted the sky a million colours, and that screened the sun from burning our delicate skin. I miss pushing away the thoughts that keep my mind awake even on these recent nights, the ones that have always crept behind my eyelids in that moment where I am both asleep and awake, where my eyes are open but my mind is closed. These moments where I can see and feel and register everything going around me, but it can never touch me. In these moments, I am invincible, from the ability to somehow manage the worlds revolving both before and behind my eyelids.

I miss spreading my arms from my sides and leaning my face towards the sky, on the edge of mountains that disappear into fog that makes it hard to breathe. I miss feeling the urge to take one final step, to climb over the railing and dance on the edge and catch the falling stars in my open palms, where they can sear artistic scars into my soft hands.

I miss having the moments in my life rated, one by one, from best to worst, when I knew what was good and what was bad. I miss knowing right from wrong, where a clean clear line separated my life into two halves, my memories and emotions, what to think of and what to feel. I miss having control over my dreams, where I could trust in the dream catchers hanging above my bed to weave the nightmares into their webs and leave me smiling through the night. I only have stars now, ones that glow in the dark that I am so afraid of. They are rated, one by one, brightest to dimmest, the ones I stare at and the ones I cannot see. I stare at them through open eyes and a closed mind, wondering when my life fell from my palms and onto the cement, shattering into a million little pieces that were too small to be pieced back together.

I miss having wings, I miss standing on the edges of cliffs. I miss the wind and I miss the ocean. I miss moving away and I miss coming back. I miss trampolines and daisy chains. I miss everything I have ever lost. I miss understanding life.
I miss living.