Lost and Still Losing

There’s an empty space by the bed when I turn the light on, the click of the light switch resounding in the near silence. My eyes were drawn to that spot. I distract myself, right the monitor, turn on music. It doens’t really combat the fact that I’m alone. Again.

That’s what I wanted, right? Time to be alone, if not to cry, then to think things over? No. I wish, now, that I wasn’t alone.

~

I got lost once. It was a new neighborhood, much larger than any I’d ever lived in. A walk, to clear my mind, was what I wanted. And then things seemed to get away from me and I had no idea where I was. I was lost, and it was the worst feeling in the world. Wandering around, trying to find my way back had felt like a losing battle, and the sight of that familiar street sign that had my street name on it lifted a rock off my chest, and I ran utnil I was in my house. I stood in the kitchen–I had only known it for a week–slightly disoriented and wishing we had never moved. Then, laughter, an unlikely plant in the desert, blossomed inside me and I laughed until I cried.

~

I couldn’t shake off the lost feeling for a long time. It would come back to haunt me. It was a scary thing for a twelve year old, to be lost with nothing to guide her but alien street signs and half-hearted instincts that recognized things as things they were not.

I feel lost, now. I don’t know what to do anymore; it’s so hard to keep my head above the water, when there’s always a presence reaching out with a large, commanding hand to shove me back under. It’s not so much that I need to be able to swim, to get somewhere. It’s that I need to stay baove water. I need to keep myself from drowning.

It feels like I wake up every morning just to fight another battle. You never know if you’re going to win. There’s no guarantee of tomorrow, right? So you do your damnedest to ensure that you will make it to tomorrow. But, tomorrow is unttainable. It’s always one day a head of you, always one step ahead.

~

There’s an aching loneliness under the frustation and tears and helpless, lost thoughts. Sometimes, I wonder if it’s enough to just know that someone will always be there. My distrust of people wants me to constantly put that to the test. But that wouldn’t be fair.

These are my battles, no one else’s. I am the only one to be blamed for any of my problems. Because, tomorrow will be a new day, and I will have new fights to engage in, new defeats to cope with. Even after being lost, it still feels like I am always losing.