Memories

Eight

Memories live on as a part of us, we can never forget them, for they are the one controlling us.

There were many times in life when we wished someone would attempt to break through our walls, regardless of how impenetrable they were just to reach the deepest space, void of anyone or anything, where we hid ourselves in.

Sometimes, walls exist so we get to see who could knock it down.

Reaching out wasn't just an act of running full speed ahead and simply extending our hands towards that someone we desired to claim as our own, disregarding the state the person was in.

No.

To really reach out means slowing down and taking in even the smallest details before filling the cracks and scars that were spreading wider all over them with love, wanting to mend them.

One thing we had always forgotten was that distance didn't mean rejection. It was never needed for us to be close to reach out. The right distance might let us see better, but if only distance itself existed, then reaching out was impossible too.

For all these years, I was completely blinded. You entrusted your heart to me, until the day it stopped beating for me.

Always; you were always beside me, though the distance between us were always growing, too. 'Always' had turned into such a bitter, bitter word.

Before long, an invisible wall stood tall between us, one that I had never tried to knock it down. Our distance never grew larger, it was kept the same.

But how could I expect the wall to tumble down, when I never even bothered to take a step closer towards it?

If I did reach out, even once, I wonder if I would notice those cracks earlier?

Then, maybe you wouldn't be broken.

Or maybe things could be mended.

Maybe you'd still be here.

Unfortunately, there was no 'maybe.'

~

Gasping for air, I came to an abrupt stop, my legs wobbling. Running after you in this aged body of mine certainly told me that time had taken its toll on me. Another step and I might just tumble down. But I couldn't afford to fall again when you were just within sight.

Tears or sweat, I wasn't sure which, but as my eyes were filled with them, they stung. You weren't far away, but appeared a blur to me.

You stood there. At the end of the road. With me on the other end. In between us were people passing by nonchalantly. They didn't know what was happening. They had no idea.

But I knew.

I knew it was you.

So in spite of my legs that were going to give up on me any second now, I took a weak step forward.

And I sprinted.

The chilly wind blew against my face, prickling but also letting an ecstatic jolt run down my body. A breath escaped my trembling lips.

I felt free.

For a moment there, the shackles seemed to have unclasped themselves off of me. Those heavy, burdening and painful weight.