When we met I was fragile. Pale and sullen, half-nocturnal, hiding in a haze of anything I could fill my body with that would help mask my loneliness, my internal struggles, my mental illness, my pain. Everything that had happened in the years that followed my so-called marriage that had left invisible bruises that were slowly evolving into just beneath the skin scars. I lived in that half-furnished apartment with lamps on boxes, empty bottles hidden in a thrift shop armoire, and journals filled up with self-deprecating feelings, and longing for escape wishes. Music was part of the bright lit moments in those dark grey days. The music served me up the only clear reflection I had of my life. Lyrics were like a mirror to my insides, and if I listened close enough, I could feel the expanse of what could lie ahead, if I let it in.

“There’s a bird that nests inside you,
sleeping underneath your skin.
Yeah, when you open up your wings to speak,
I wish you’d let me in.”

“A Murder Of One” by Counting Crows
from the album, August And Everything After (1993)
Song Of The Day – September 27, 2011

I think my brokenness attracted you. At first. Maybe it was a known comfort, something you recognized. Two damaged souls side-by-side, trying to grow wings. You and me against the world. You found a way out first, though at the eleventh hour I ended up tethering you to my side of the shore. I have often wondered what would have happened if you had never come by my apartment that night. Had we never kissed. Had you left on that bus with me as just a hazy regret, and not a reason to come back.

Back then, you were so much stronger than I was. You seemed like magic and hope, passion and possibility.

So, I looked out my window, and invited you in.

“