Dark roads

Dark roads
lead me on
all alone
further away
from where I've come

Every step I take
is forced by every mistake I make
Leading me into
the comforting silence
of the night

Shadows, deep treads
worn grooves in the road
by silent ones
who never again shall speak

my mind screams out
cursing the silence
the loneliness
and all the pain
that accompanies it in this
nightmarish sonata

I look down into a puddle
and see what I have become
Where are the smiles
the laughter, the joy of my beginning years?

they are gone now
lost forever
in the shadows of my heart

Long...long have
I traveled these roads
on the other side of this mirror
the mirror that is my life

Sometimes
this one way mirror cracks
so that some of me can escape
to enjoy the life I have

but the shadows are always there
taking shape and form
of biting words and stinging loneliness

and I retreat
to quiet dark roads once more
retreating...retreating......always... retreating

Long story short

I do.
I do.
The smile plastered across her face was as real as the ache in her heart. A smiling face flashed before her eyes and she banished it with a quick shake of her head.

A strong breeze ruffled the bride's dress before chasing across the grass and stealing up into the trees. It was the perfect day for a wedding. Adel smiled and watched the bride and groom go stand before the door to be congratulated by everyone. Turning to her right she smiled at her friend and together they stood up to walk over, to be the first ones to say well wishes.

“I'm so happy for you, congratulations!” Adel said with real meaning giving the groom a tight hug.
“I'm glad I got to finally meet you!” she said to the bride and gave her a hug as well. The two murmured their responses as she and her friend continued in to snack on appetizers before the dinner.

Adel played catch up, asking all the usual questions, wondering about old friends. It felt good to be in what she always considered her home state. The cool weather was just a little below comfortable due to the strong breeze, this made the sun warming her that much more pleasant. Light clouds skidded behind green trees and past large rocks that were the feature of this park. A beautiful place she thought.

The bride and groom had been married on the top of the ski hill, over looking the grassy hill and small lake below. The image that flashed into her head was not of the bride and groom but her and another man, his dark hair ruffled by breeze and that heart stealing smile on his face. She again banished these thoughts and answered her friend's question.

“Yeah, we're not together anymore...” She fired a distracting question at her friend. “How are you and yours? ...What you're not engaged yet?!”
“I think he'll ask me this summer...” was her response. Adel kept her mind firmly on conversation until the bride and groom took their places at the table up front for the meal.

Although first up to the caterer's table, Adel didn't have much of an apetite. She heaped fruit, a dinner role and some noodles onto her plate and returned to her seat. She finished her meal waiting for others to get their food and the speeches to begin.

The best man told the story of how the two met, then the groom himself followed up with a story about his wife. About the time he finished his story Adel's father texted her that her court date notice had arrived and it was going to be the first. As the day was the 30th panic stole over her, then recognition of the long drive ahead.
She stole up quietly beside the couple and told the groom she had to leave. He wished her safe journey and as she stood up and tugged her shirt into place she gave him a hug, gave her friend one as well and stole out to her car.

Once in her car, the thoughts she had tried to hold back flooded her. She was happy for her friends but it reminded her of him... Bitterness flooded her, with a strength she had not felt in a long, long time. She got the car turned on and going down the right road after a couple moments. Unfair thoughts crashed against her mind like waves crashing on a rocky shore.

Why? Why? That could have been us... his face flashed before her eyes, over lapped by the image of the two of them in wedding attire. Why couldn't he have listened to me sooner? Why couldn't I have left sooner? Maybe then I wouldn't have been pushed past my limit... and then maybe I could be with him. Her heart tightened painfully as she steered the car down the winding narrow road. I put three years... Three! Years of my life into him only to have him pull himself together when I am gone... now she gets the final result and I'm on square one. I went through too much to be with him again but GOD WHY? Why rob me of my day? She could too easily see him and her together, she could have been so happy... her fists hit the steering wheel, once, twice, three times she pounded over and over while the tears streamed her face. Why can't I escape him? I can't, won't, go back to him.. it's over. The two of them will be happy, and a part of me is glad for it... but my heart aches so. Is this part of letting go... the hurt go too? She tried to banish the bitterness, steering mindlessly until she came to the first stop sign. Numbly she turned right and headed further away. Life's not fair, I know this. My heart just likes to ignore that rule, to rant and tug and run til it can no more. She wanted him to be in front of her, to rant at him, to yell, to cry, to let him know just how unfair it all was, how much it hurt. But she couldn't. She wouldn't. It just wasn't right.

The sound of her phone dragged her away from her thoughts. As she hit the highway with a half full gas tank she looked at the text again, the 1st of July... not June. She sighed, not too upset for being able to leave but not happy to miss the rest of the wedding. It would be late when she got home and her soul felt so weary. Plugging in her ipod she pulled up a play list and listening to the music she drove into the night.

Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts? Just a cage of rib bone and other various parts. So it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess and to stop the muscle that makes us confess, and we are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise and we are just breakable breakable breakable girls and boys...