My muse is one fickle bitch.

She is patronizing in her arbitrariness, disdainful in her elusiveness.

For months now I have begged her to return to me, chucked my pride out the car window at 85 mph into the dark of night as I scan shadowy back roads to find her, calling out her name, wildly into the midnight air, heavy with anticipation.

I’ve set up altars in her name, promised my soul to her for just one fleeting moment again to bask in the possibility and clarity she provides.

It’s just now that I realize she only turns up when I’m completely broken, delighting in kicking around the pieces of me for a while as I watch on, eyes wide with disbelief. It always takes a few moments before I notice that I am actually mistaken.

Her enjoyment is not in the kicking around, but in the putting back together.

Your turn to run.

I don’t want to be just another moment in your history. Just another book on the shelf of your infinite library. The song on your iTunes playlist that you loved hard for three weeks straight and now just skip through to the next.

I don’t want to be the water that cuts so easily under your oars as you paddle away.

Because you made me believe less in me and you and more in us and we and now I can’t go back. I shed the impermeable layer that initially kept me from letting you in and now I can’t stop absorbing you. All that energy I didn’t put into us I’m now taking in, radioactive with remorse. And at times I feel as though I might burst with all these emotions I worked so circumspectly to train to roll right off, not in.

You brought truth to me in a way I was not ready to reciprocate. Part of me always thought there would be a runner in this story, but I had no idea your gym shoes would be so effortlessly laced by the time I realized it wasn't me.

By the time I realized this wasn't what I wanted, you had already cut a path through the trees and I could barely make out your dizzying shadow.

You gave me no choice in loving you and now you leave me nothing but to trace and retrace the the outline of your footsteps in the soil, still warm with the heat of you.

Deja vu

Lately I have been propping up my smile with the ghosts of memories past.

This smile is a counterfeit though, forged with regret that slumps my shoulders and pulls the corners of my mouth down with defeat.

And I think to myself, "This should be easier the second time around."

My poor heart has only recently adjusted to being whole again.

But I'll trudge on, soldiering through the muck yet again; this time trying to avoid the muddy footprints of my past mistakes.