I don’t hate you.
Exhaustion has long extinguished the passion it would take to hate you.
A lot of them do…
They hate you and love you and wish they were you and wish they had you.
They see you as untouchable, a falling inferno.
But I know.
Sometimes enough to recognize that hating you would be harder than hating myself.
Their hatred isn’t the worst part.
The very worst part is the invisibility, the aversion of eyes.
It’s their lack of calling you worthless that deems you such, just an echo of an angel, a foggy reflection of a lost warrior.

I used to glimmer gossamer too.
That heat you feel?
I used to hold it. I used to be it.
That fire we both misread as a smiling dare to live is just a warning of blurry eyes, lost tokens in a wishing well.
You think it’s all there is.
The sting, the rush of everything at once, it lets you soar.
I know.
I used to look up and see what you see, and think the moments of locked eyes in acknowledgement of sneaky motives were the only in my life.
Do you remember now?
How they used to hold me in the clouds?

Just so you know,
It’s a long fall.