Train station

Your train is leaving the station

“choo-chooo”

Dusty air clouds the world. Smoke rises snaking towards the sky. My vision is hazy and yet, it’s not because of the soot or the smog. It’s because I’m blinking back tears.

You stand so beautifully framed in a rectangular window. The edges are curved ever so slightly and the effect leaves you as one frame in a string of pictures, of people, of life.

I’m waving from the platform as if I’m getting left behind. But to the outside world, it wouldn’t appear that way. You see my face is bared in a smile. Teeth flashing in the converse of pain held in my eyes. I miss you more than words can describe, but what a waste if your last moments with me are filled with a blubbering girl of a mess. Your face is full of streaked tears. I know it’s hard for you to go.

But it’s the way of the world.

Your nights are full of crazy moments, adrenaline rushes, bad choices that transform into soft tumbles of words, so fluid you’d have to have been there. When you tell me about them on the phone I reassure you I get it.

I do, I really do!

I spend my nights reading in bed asking what it would take to pencil my name into the chalk design on your heart. The passenger door already holds a name, the left and right, middle and front.

All aboard!
Oh wait,
there’s no room for more.

I hate that the only story I have to give you isn’t actually a story. It’s poetry, except why do I feel ashamed to share it?

I do though, regardless of my inner feels.

It keeps you on the phone, It keeps you listening and engaged, but see I’m scared. Because what if I run out of things to say? What if the tickets back home have been sold? What if I’m another thought a fond memory, a hearty chuckle.

Chapters of your life could fill the walls. You effortlessly engage with the world, they love you. It’s like the spotlight tracks you, and the stadiums full, but I couldn’t make it. I watch the tape, but it’s not the same. It’s like you’re speaking a different language. Your lifes on times two speed and I’m on point five. How can I keep up when all I do is say the wrong thing, when I struggle to communicate, when I fail to emulate?

My hair splays in messy curls, not a lion's mane, no it’s something no one can tame. I lose myself wondering how you twirled your hair that day, how you maintain your smile. How you’re the strongest person I know and you deserve to scream louder than any other thing.

Your train is now gone from the station. It’s okay, I can be patient. But for the rest of my life I will chase behind you. I’m not trying to share your limelight, I promise. And I know. I know more than anyone your life is not perfect and that’s what makes it more incredible. Because I fill up notes in a jar to remind you of who you are and you still don’t know you’re a star. You glitter and twinkle and I say look! It’s my favorite star! I shout from rooftops and make billboards. I say how could anything be so bright? Because at the end of the day, forever and ever, I will follow your light.