Finding the Light Switch

Her name was Evangeline and more often than not,

she was alone.

Her name was Evangeline, and yes,

she may have been alone but she was rarely lonely.

But regardless of whether you are lonely or not,

being alone takes its toll.

For her, the depression was an odd sort of happiness.

She fell in love with the sadness

and the deepness that came with it

because melancholy had become her haven

and her mind the only respite.

So each morning she got up and put on her face.

Mascara, her optimism,

blush, her trust,

and lipstick, her honesty.

But in her mind, they stumbled,

all her sorrows and all her unforgivables.

They felt around the walls of her head,

looking for the glow at the end of the chasm but knowing,

she wanted to stay in the dark

with hands covering her eyes

as soon as she glimpsed a star.

And those hands were smaller than she thought,

younger than she thought,

more dependent than she thought.

She was indignant of this because

her independence had become her security blanket,

her happy place,

her warmth in the dead of winter.

And more than anything,

it was her dependency that frightened her.

Because to be dependent on anything, anyone,

meant that she was no longer in control,

that her emotions were not her own.

She was afraid of being wrong, and sometimes,

she was afraid of being right.

She was afraid of seeing eyes in the space between the windowsill and the blinds and

of getting hurt and crooked picture frames and different foods touching each other on her plate and of trusting people and getting too comfortable.

She was afraid of getting betrayed but really,

she was afraid that she would do the betraying.

More than anything, though,

she was scared of someone knowing her

better than she knew herself.

So she tried to keep a tidy soul

and all that she did,

all that she was,

was innocence.

And though her independence was everything to her,

she was just a little girl

tangled in the sheets after a nightmare,

unable to find her way towards the light switch.

And she needs to learn that in order to find the light,

all she needs to do is take the hand of the person walking right beside her that she has refused to acknowledge.

Easier said than done.

And she has had it said to her.

Over and over.

But her name was not Evangeline, not really,

and more often than not,

she was never alone.

And more often than not,

she was never lonely.

Because more often than not,

she was content.

Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda makes me jealous.

In all honesty, I don't know what does it. The poems I like most of his, If You Forget Me and Love Sonnet XVII, are the ones that really get to me. I love the simplicity of them. I feel like, generally speaking, you can get across the most honesty, and the emotions that most everyone understands, if you speak simply. Think about it: when you say just one word, say, "lost" or "sunbeam" or "forlorn", a very specific feeling comes to mind. Neruda is talented in taking only a few words and letting them sink in deep. My favorite is the phrase that simply says, "If you forget me, I shall already have forgotten you." How... depressing. It's like the poor guy is trying to convince himself that he will be just fine if the love of his life forgets him. 

He won't.