Illuminate Me

When I told you I loved you with all my heart,

perhaps you never understood.

My heart is like a magnificent skyscraper and every story was lit like a fancy casino,

glamorously shimmering from its hundreds of windows.

I made sure it was always lit from your view.

Though, I have a confession to make:

It was very rarely that my light was strong enough to hold by itself.

In fact, the lights would shut down more often than I’d have liked to admit to you, or anyone else.

No, the lights were nearly broken and not even a backup generator could hold such a behemoth of a building, and so I would panic.

I panicked and did my best to light it for you because you deserved the prettiest view.

I brought candles.

Thousands upon thousands would illuminate the rooms just bright enough for you to look up at the windows and smile because they were shining and you imagined a place as beautiful as it once was.

Though it wasn’t any longer.

The candles on the first floors would melt and burn out while I’d sprint up the stairs to carry more to the middle floors. My flames were burning faster than I could run, my lungs wanted to give out trying, bursting and frazzling like my lighter (which, it too, needed replacing). I was so carried away, caught in the motions of burning and burnouts that I would trip up the steps and injure myself. I cried as I spilled hot wax down my hands, my arms, and I would peek through my windows with tears, noticing the days you no longer looked up at them. I tried even harder to light the place; I brought bigger candles, maybe they’d hold longer, maybe I could have had more time. You looked up now and again and I felt like maybe you’d finally understood. Then you left and, well, I realized you never knew how hard it is to keep the lights on.

I let them burn out for good.

I keep hesitating, hovering my match over a few candles, wondering if it’s worth pretending my love is still easy. I’ve tossed my old light bulbs out the windows just to see them shatter. I thought maybe if you’d walk by and see the broken glass, you’d want to know for yourself and see what I put myself through.

Yet, all you did was ignore the sounds of the glass smashing against the concrete, the sounds of my shoes rubbing the shards into the pavement, and me.

I still light a few candles here and there, but after a few hours, I have the urge to put them out again so I drown it all in buckets of water.

My heart is a mess, and I wish now that instead of just looking up at the illumination, you would have wanted to be involved, and that you would have taken the time to gander inside the building for a change. Why did you never do that for me?