Label

What if we all wore our secrets like badges on our shirts?
What if we wrote them on our foreheads,
Screamed them on the streets?
What if we could just talk about them,
Without fearing judgment or that they would change everything?
What if... what if... what if my past didn't matter?
If people cared, but it didn't change anything.
If people actually empathized, but didn't let it fester.
Why can't I tell everyone what my story is?
Why is this part of me so huge, and so hugely judged?
This is a huge part of me.
For goodness sakes, it's my story, my song.
I want to sing it, write it, read it, tell it.
Of course I know I need to keep something close to my heart.
I know this should be it.
But this is such a huge, huge, huge part of me.
What if we could just wear them like name tags.
"Hello, my name is R, and I have PTSD."
"Hello, my name is ___ and I'm depressed."
"Hello, my name is ___ and I beat depression."
I am more than who I am now. I am less than that if you make me less.
I am me, and entirely myself, and I don't like hiding it.
I will share my story, for now, with those who need it.
With those people who can help me.
With those who I know won't let it change anything.

But if I could wear it as a label...

Midnight

It's the harsh line drawn between yesterday and today.
you're like a perpetual midnight,
without the finality, without the hope of a new day.
You're like the clock freezing as it changed, until suddenly it was 12:01,
You aren't here, and I'm alone.
And I stand here, smiling and moving on, because no one Here knows you.
You're a perpetual ghost.
And it's stupid. I keep reaching for your hand.
Like you would be there the way you were for those two weeks.
Until what was like two years in two weeks ended, and you went home.
Like you would be there for me still.
Two weeks we met, two weeks we talked, two weeks we didn't...
And now you can ignore me, like I ignored the clock skip.
And the power goes out, the clock resets, until someone gets around to fixing it.
And you can skip that minute, and I'll let that go, but in that minute I realize it:
You didn't say goodbye. Not now, not before when you left.
And you leave me again, in this horrible metaphorical sense.
You leave me again, the physical distance to your advantage.
You leave me again, like they always seem to.
Skip the minute like you skipped the goodbye... Coward.
And the power goes out, and it's dark for a minute.
The world is dark, and my heart freezes, and my fingertips go numb.
Hours, and hours, one for every day it took for you to forget me-- a number I'll never know.
And then it's back, so very behind...
And it'll be days until I forget you, because being forgotten is a worse pain...
Being forgotten is the worst heartbreak, because there's no goodbye.
No finality.
An open-ended, never ending blinking clock.
An infinite midnight...
In whose time zone, well... that's up to you, I suppose.