There's No Train Coming For Them

There’s no more room for heartbreak in this life, in my life. It may not be all the way true, but it feels that way. It feels like my soul is numb to people coming and going because so many people have come and gone. Like passengers on a train you can’t afford a ticket to, all you have to give is a subtle wave before you turn your back. Goodbye sweet human, you never knew me well.

There is no fear of the numbness, I only fear that it will creep into the loves I  still have. The loves that can’t afford a train ticket either, or who have no interest in traveling away from me. But this fear is minimal. Time and time again, people will stand on the platform with you and grab you by the elbow when it’s time to stop staring into the distance the train was headed towards. Just a tug in the right direction, their direction. Sweet.

Sometimes I think of burning down the platform where the train comes to take people away, but I am the platform. I am the stop on the journey to the rest of their lives. My outstretched hands are what people come to and leave behind. I can’t burn down the hands at the ends of my own wrists because no more souls could come and go. That’s worse than the pain of seeing the train turn to nothing on the horizon.

Someone left again, that’s nothing new. It doesn’t hurt like it used to. Like I said, I’m numb after the initial sting. Part of me thinks it doesn’t mean anything. My life is headed in a direction that is too hard for people who aren’t good at traveling. People have to be able to keep up with a runaway like me.

But as I stood on the metaphorical platform that I’ve probably already overused, I whispered a little prayer to my God that this would just go somewhere else in my mind. That I would think of beautiful things instead. And I did.

A friend talked to me for a while and we spoke of hard things and laughed at weird things and accepted life for what it was, something awfully confusing. Then came the kind words from a friend who loves me from a distance. We love each other and his words reminded me of that. Kind words to trade for the ones that meant to pierce my heart. Kind words built a barrier a long time ago.

Just for good measure, the universe sent me a reminder that someone needed me, they needed me to love them. Now was not the time to focus on the passengers on the train that just left, it was time to spend my life with someone else. A little pinch of humility to bring me back to reality, away from metaphors and self-doubt.

There’s no time in this life to waste anymore. There’s just love to find and hold and never let go. The numbness is getting me closer to setting myself free to just be with those who won’t leave me just yet. There’s no train coming for them.