You don’t need me like you once did. I always feared longing for something I couldn’t have. It’s stretching myself farther than the space between the stars I can’t ever reach.

I’m the change in the plot. I’m the last gust of wind before everything blows over. I’m the heaving rain that pounds against your bedroom window. The same one we climbed out when the night would open it’s arms up to us- we’d play a game of truth or dare and you never spoke up. You’d rather choke on words than show me your scars, and that’s okay too. Covered your palms so that I couldn’t trace the map that leads me back to you.

Some things are meant to be kept a secret. Sometimes trying isn’t enough. I hope you come across this and wonder if it’s about you. I think you’d laugh and shake your head. You’d say this was my final dare- where I show all my cards and your still the mystery. I no longer care to figure out your plot. Your story is boring. Dried up like the old well we used to dangle our legs over and throw rocks down. Count the seconds before you hear the stone drop to the bottom:

One- you’re okay.

Two- you sit too close to the edge.

Three- tell me a truth already.

Four- you’re not faking it well anymore.

Five- you dare me to jump in.

These sticky acts that bring us farther and closer all at once. Finality.

These days, I’m cracking through the bottom layer and rising like the vines that bordered the old well. Stretching my palms towards a new day and I can’t help but give into the seasons. It’s all bleeding together, but I’m sewn shut. Im finally sewn shut- I sit and watch everything revolve like a daydream.

The other day I heard a group of girls laughing in summer heat. Their limbs were lazily hanging from car windows- sun kissed and unbothered. They sang and screamed and laughed and sped towards the sunset. When the light turned green I smiled and drove away from a town we once owned. I felt the old sigh in the breeze and remembered that feeling. Our favorite fucking feeling. The feeling of being free and extraordinary and reckless and young. And even if you swear none of it mattered- I’d say your lying through crooked teeth. I’d say you’re trapped in your own body. I’d say you don’t know me how you once did. Neither do I. But my final dare for you is magnetic. It’ll make you shiver. I don’t think you have the gull. And if you’re reading this I dare you to walk through whatever is haunting you. The monsters in your mind are taking over again and it starts with you. It starts with you. It starts with you. It starts with you.