I Belong In The Light

In The Shadows
By:
Kate Workman

I don’t belong in the shadows
I belong in the light
where the sun can hit my face
and I can take to flight

I don’t belong in the darkness
where moonlight is pale
where you can kiss me softly
and secrets are our veil

I belong in the sun
where we were meant to be
Come out in the light
away from mystery

I’m so sory to leave you
but I have to walk away
Please keep in mind that I think of you
each and every day

And when the sun beats down
warming my skin and hair
I’ll look to the sky and whisper
“I wish you were there.”

Yet, in my heart, you already are.

I don’t remember the direct quote, but I based my entire poem about being marked by the shadows off of it.  “It” was a line that Jason said to me, from a dream he had.  Be warned.  You’ve been marked by the shadows, and more than your life is at stake.  Or someting like that.  And you know, that statement is right.  He was marked by the shadows, and so was I for as long as I stayed with him.

Damn!!!  I just realized another entry I lost!  It was that dream about him where there were two him’s, but one was his mom.  Damn!!!

But anyway.  I bring up that, because . . .  Even that dream, it took place at night, even though there were other parts, in the middle of everything, that were during the daytime.  Everything with he and I happened under the surface.  Days, and everyone’s lives went on as normal, but beneath it all . . .  There was us.  There were our problems, our secrets.

So many times since I last left Kean, I’ve wanted to break my resolution and go back up there to see him, just once.  Just talk to him one last time.  Hug him one last time.  I was lying in bed about a week and a half ago, trying to figure out if there was any way I could break my word, yet somehow rationalize it.  I obviously didn’t figure out a way that night, nor have I since.  Though I haven’t really thought about in except in passing since, because Mike mentioned to me the very next day about how he was afraid I would lose my resolve.

Basically, I heard that and knew that even if I did come up with some way to break my word to myself, I couldn’t go through with it.  Because I would just be starting the cycle over.  No . . . it is better this way, though it doesn’t completely feel like it now.  I am afraid that Jason will just let me go, and go on his own lonely way.  Yet, I almost feel like a mistress to him.  The “other woman.”  And I don’t deserve to feel that way in something that’s supposed to be a best friendship.  I don’t deserve to be someone who is hidden away, and whether he admits it or not, someone he’s ashamed of.  He insisted he wasn’t, but that statement wouldn’t hold water if we’d been in public.  In public, he’d avoid me like the plague, in case there was any chance a family member of his was around.

::Sighs::  He pulled me into the shadows for years at this point.  And I’m still not quite sure what to do now that I’ve stepped back into the light.  I have to carry on with my life, yet . . . in the back of my mind, and in the foreground right now, I’ll always wonder if he’s ever going to contact me.  I honestly don’t expect him to now.  I mean, he never, or rarely ever, wrote me notes when I was talking to him.  Why would he leave them now that I said I wasn’t going to respond?

I miss him.  I’m going to miss him for a long time.  But I’ll never forget the things he taught me.  The things I learned about myself just by being around him.  The laughs we’ve had.  The tears I shed.  The private jokes we have.  I love him, and I’ll never forget him.

I just hope he doesn’t forget me.

But I couldn’t live in the shadows anymore.  The darkness is his world.  Not mine . . .

I need the light.