Close Your Eyes

Restless souls are born in deserts,

Dreaming of the jungle.

She told him she was a restless soul.

He told her he was a prism.

Colorless and jagged,

Watching the light pass through.

Him—he lived anywhere the sky touched.

He lived, sometimes.

Sometimes, he slept the days away.

Her—she lived in a big house, once.

After, she lived in the shadow of a grand hotel.

Her mind was a hotel for traveling dreams.

He woke when the sun began to set,

Beginning his days with darkness.

She woke to watch the stars fade,

Wishing she’d woken inside of one.

They visited each other when the shadows grew too long.

He came to her when the streets were cold,

She came to him with empty pockets.

He didn’t have pockets,

But he filled hers with green glass shards

Since she liked to feel the sunlight splinter

Over her face.

Her hands were always cold,

But she wrapped his in a scarf,

Since he hated to shiver.

He studied her as they walked down sidewalks,

Wishing her smile was his.

They snuck into romance films,

She pointed out all the actresses she wanted to be.

The movies were dishonest

And the actors alcoholics,

But he didn’t point that out.

Were they waiting for something?

Her—maybe she waited for the sun to shine on her face,

For a dream to set down its bags

And make a home of a wandering soul. 

Or maybe she waited for memories

To fade away.

She waited,

Hoping to become a star,

Hot and bright, 

Searing away the past

Like an old jacket filled with pocket-holes.

Him—he waited, too.

Maybe he was waiting for salvation.

Maybe he waited to feel something.

He waited for his mouth to want to smile,

His eyes to want to cry.

He waited for the films to cast a sheen over his eyes

Like they did to her,

Waited to wake up freed from the night,

Glowing with the desire to live.

They waited for light,

From within or without.

They waited like wheat for rain.

He still called himself a prism

But a basin is what he had always been,

Hands cupped together,

Praying for a cure.

She thought herself a restless soul,

But she was a fugitive beneath,

Hiding behind shadows and smiles,

Fleeing her pursuer.

A basin and a fugitive.

She washed her face in his lostness,

He gathered up her locked-in tears.

Did they love each other?

Who knows.

The streets were dangerous,

The roads winding,

And they clung to one another,

Believing they had to 

Turn away from the shadows 

That obscured the path ahead.

The harder you close your eyes,

The more painful it will be when you need

 to open them.

By Haley Creighton