head held down

with my head tilted to the ground, I miss life around me. at least that’s what hear them say somehow when not looking up the world seems to pass you by and you’re oblivious beyond the speckled flicks in the asphalt that glimmer in the sun. I never quite realized how much the world spun around me. how hours turned to days and nights to days, days to years. without looking up the colors of the fall never met my eye. the blooms from the spring never caught my attention. had I looked up I might have seen that he noticed me that when I passed by sometimes all his focus was lost. that when he caught a glimpse of my bent figure prostrated to the ground he wondered at me. he wanted to lift my face and see what was behind my eyes. what the profile was that covered by my straggly brown hair. I wonder if I had known sooner would I have looked up? looked up to see that even though sometimes though it seemed like he was moving on he struggled. that even though sometimes I could hear his laugh echo in the hollow air, that he was lonely. that he missed me? That sometimes the only refuse he took in the day was in waiting for my bent figure to pass him by. sometimes as he watched from the distance he wanted to tell her to lift her head. tell her to hold it high, tell her to be proud. but would he have loved her the same if she did that? maybe something about how intently she gazed at the ground brought them together. he didn’t know. how might I have acted had I known? some say its never too late but somehow for me, as usual, I managed to break the ideas and principles that we seem to be raised on. by the time my head was raised, he was gone. his eyes weren’t there to welcome me back to life. he wasn’t there to see what was behind my eyes. and somehow I realized that the world was just as hollow and empty with my head held high. somehow it felt more comfortable suffocating slowly underwater. it felt better for me to feel the pressure from the water burst my lungs. at least then the world felt more obvious. at least then there were no rainbows and sun to lie trying to convincingly tell me that things were going to be okay when everyone knew they weren’t. I had looked to the stars for answers and somehow all I had found in the cosmic atmosphere were jumbled patterns of unrealistic hope. and somehow looking down underwater it seemed to coax me back to reality and tell not to fight the realities of life. it told me not to fight it. it told me to let the water fill my lungs and not try to reach the top. he wasn’t there to save me anymore he wasn’t there to pull me back up anymore there was hardly any reason to resurface.