Keep Art Alive :: “Madness Returns” :: Art by Cate Rangel

“Do you think of me ,
like I dream of you? 
Do you wish you were here, 
like I wish I was with you?”

She thinks that he thinks she has stopped thinking about him. The words exchanged had taken the nearest exit, their rapid winged flight slowed and stopped, wings clipped, silence screaming between them. She had made choices that caused movements away, and he had dug his heels in, staying solidly in place, becoming the immovable object of the two of them. They never said goodbye, not even a wave, they just faded, the echoes becoming  nothing, vacant boxes that once overflowed with letters and questions and music turned into empty and gone.

Did he forget her? She knows she never forgot about him. Her blood is still staining her hands, the spot on her chest where her heart is meant to be is still gashed open, and every so often a song plays that brings him so close in her memory, so vividly illustrated in stuff and nonsense and desire, and she is pulled back, tugged hard at her core, hearing the whispers to eat, drink and devour, to fall back into that head over heels recklessness, where what if’s take over and cloud all that’s left of her common senses.

She will never forget him, not when he plays melodic and wistful  like the mixes of music they once traded back and forth, and not when he still slides into her dreams, languid and lyrical, causing her to nocturnally tremble. The nicknames, the question marks, old t-shirts and bad actress confessions, basements and bottles of whiskey, the wonder of just one kiss that could never, but could possibly, forever, never, someday be theirs. Is it all just never now, or is there a passing, passive, persistent wish that still lives on?

“You loved me before,
do you love me now?”

Do You Love Me Now? :: The Breeders