a rainbow and you

you've been gone for days and when you return i don't really see you. you exist as a complaint, a pain in my chest, a knawing ache in my side, real but not visibly real. i try to be hard, pretend I'm Clint Eastwood and practice asking the question, "are you feeling lucky?" the truth is i cannot, despite my best efforts, be that harsh, my voice quivers and my mind plays a montage of happier times. granted these memories are old and the video is beginning to skip, but certain shots stick, like they've been super glued to the inside walls of my skull. perhaps it's best to remember you this way, to remember you as the disillusioned, puffer fish little girl remembers you. why not? and yet, things have changed, walls are crashing down about our heads, i have the sense to duck, but you, you are staring straight up at the collapsing ceiling hands in the air ready to brace the entire thing. this weight is too heavy for you, but you stand in the center of the room swearing and crying out like a madman. i cannot help but want to help you save this, afterall we both live here. but i've lost alot of faith and i've seen the cracks widening for years. i take up a piece of crumbled wall and try to place it in a crater size hole. this place is really falling apart. i tug at your shirt and say "i'm not feeling very lucky", i nod toward the door but you growl at me, tell me i don't work to save anything. i look at you, who would want to save this? this faulty structure with its collapsing walls. lets build another, i say, lets build another and re-set this foundation.

you've been gone for days and when you return i don't really see you. it isn't until i look up at the sky that i find a new memory to add to that old tape. a rainbow. the first one i've seen in a long time and it comes in with you. a rainbow, brightness and color, pure. suddenly i don't think you're shouting anymore, suddenly i see the good in you. suddenly, i miss you, just a little. suddenly, i see you, i see you as that puffer fish girl did, i see you and think perhaps we'll both make it out of here. brighter skies ahead in a new land where we can re-name one another.