Puzzle

Re-reading the things I wrote when I was sixteen-seventeen brings me back to that place between places again. Up til now I still can't believe it has been two years since my life has changed so much that the wish I wanted to take back has completely taken its toll. There are a lot of lines in my poems that now I feel sorry for; the moving on but still loving theme - it was merely my survival mechanism as a child. We all have that little trick that we rely on to protect ourselves from what we always question for leaving. But some tricks are only useful for a while until it becomes a habit that kills you as you grow older. Whenever I start writing, I can't stop my fingers from sleep-walking to pick at my own scabs to see if there's still a story underneath. Bad habits always disguise themselves as good ones when you first pick them up.

I used to know a boy who collected bits and bits of broken hearts and stuck them onto his bedroom wall like a detective's evidence board. I suppose this is what I learnt from him; I suppose this is why the tiny pieces of metaphor in my poems constantly jump from one imagery to another. I wasn't sure what sort of traces he was looking for, and what crime he was trying to solve, but I held on tight to him anyway because I thought he could save me. Of course, in the end he couldn't. I'm the only one who can save myself. In the end I had to walk away from him and my sixteen-seventeen writings with my weak ankles because he said he didn't want to figure me out anymore. He made me watch him tear everything down from his wall. And after that I told him I was sorry. I would be easy to solve if I weren't missing pieces.