Darkness. Confusion. Anger. Forgiveness. Regret. Resent. Too much at once. Stand there and watch next time you pass. Next time you see that lonely, heartbroken girl. Take a second and listen closely. Not just to her voice cracking as the tears slowly squeeze out of her eyes. Not just to her broken tone. Listen closely. She can tell you more than you think.

"Why are you crying sweet girl?" You should ask her. Don’t just stand there and say, “Poor baby.” Ask her. There’s a story. Listen further than just her plain words. She’s sorry. She’s broken. She doesn’t want to hurt you anymore. Tell her it’s all right. Tell her it’s all okay. She’s not going to just nod, she can’t. A minute ago, you were so angry, so furious. But now you hear she’s sorrier than ever. What is it? Why is she still crying? She doesn’t answer when you ask her. She shakes your arm off when you put it around her shoulder. She doesn’t know what she wants. She can’t understand.

It’s dark. There’s only confusion. There’s only that aching feeling pounding at her lonesome heart. She cries because she’s so afraid. She was afraid she hurt you too deeply. She thought she lost you, that you would never talk to her again, that you would hate her. She cries because she realizes how deeply she carved her sharp knife into your heart. She realizes how she threw away your concerns for her own. She cries. Tears. Bitter tears. Angry tears. Remorseful tears. Scared tears.

You watch as she shakes her head and bites her lip till blood begins to mix in her saliva. She swallows sharply and lets out another deep wail. NO, she wants to scream, it’s not worth it. She shakes her head because she can’t understand why everything must end. She’s so afraid to lose you. She doesn’t want to watch you walk away because of another careless error. Her shoulders bounce up and down as she shakes from the cold and misery. She feels alone, she hates the feeling, that’s why she’s so scared to lose you again. She doesn’t want to be left alone.

Alone she sits in the corner, the snow peacefully falling against the dark winter night. She sits in the window watching the peaceful nature pass and fulfill its life purpose. But she’s sitting helplessly. Fulfilling nothing. She’s worthless. She feels enslaved to her mistakes because every time they bring her down. She watches the snow drift by and watches life slip away, fall to the ground and helplessly melt in the warmth of the sidewalk. She watches as a lonely man walks down the wet, cold walk stepping on the fresh flakes of life. She watches from her window as you slowly erase from sight. She watches your figure disappear. She lets her tears slip down her cold cheeks knowing she has ruined everything. She knows it was all her fault. She’s the only one who can fix it but something tells her it’s too late.

She closes her eyes and lets you walk away. She doesn’t want to see you leave. She knows you can’t hear her crying. You can’t hear her heart tearing apart from regret. You can’t hear her slowly breaking down to pieces of sand. You can walk away deafly. All you see is a crying girl. She opens her eyes and all she sees are the heavy footsteps left in the fresh snow. Fresh opportunities. Fresh new chances still untouched. But you walk right over them and trample the white purity leaving a brown tinge to it. She wants to scream and say, STOP. But her vocal cords are still and silent. Noise doesn’t come out. When she tries to tell you, her words don’t say it right. She starts saying the wrong things. You can’t hear. But you’re not there anymore anyway. You walked away without hearing the truth. She can’t cry anymore. She can’t think anymore. She throws down everything and runs.

The cold air pierces her cheeks but she can’t feel it. She can’t feel anything. Only an aching feeling melting her frozen heart. She feels incomplete. She feels imperfect. She knows there’s no one out there who cares anymore. She let everyone down. She let everyone know her in the wrong way. She let everyone see her rough side. She threw every chance away and then washed them all down with her salty, dirty, and unwanted tears. She has no one there. No one cares. No one ever will. She had pushed them all away. She stabbed every prospect violently till it lied, bleeding helplessly, never to come back.

Where is she going? She asks herself. But she can’t tell. She runs, letting the cold numb her beyond her thin, useless skin. She feels strong, having no one there to stop her anymore. No one to care anymore. No one. No one to satisfy. But she can’t anymore. Her legs are weak from the frigid air biting at her helpless skin. Her heart is numb and broken because she feels alone and friendless. Her mind’s spinning in circles because the hours she spent crying and too many thoughts she was trying to push away. She can’t anymore. She’s not strong enough. Her lonesome body drops right there and she is left alone there, watching the snow come down at her. She watches as life collapses on her. She watched chances sprinkled on her though they never stayed. They always melted. She watches and understands how useless she is and always will be. She doesn’t want to even take up space anymore. Why should she even live? No one would notice is she never came back home.

She hated the realization that no one really truly cared. No one truly understood her. She only let the world down. She only let life slip away. She couldn’t think like this anymore. Again she began to cry. She sat alone once more and cried more than before. People passed and stared. No one ever listened. They didn’t hear her insecurity. They didn’t hear her loneliness. They only heard her stubborn tears forcing their way out. She didn’t care anymore.

She watched the footsteps plant themselves in the snow only to be covered once again. She looked up and saw the tree she sat under. A bare and naked tree. She sat beneath a source of so much goodness though now it only took up space. She looked up through her tears and saw its uselessness. She saw its embarrassed look of nakedness. She had let the leaves fall too, she realized. As she rested her face between her folded knees and let herself pour out so no can hear, a slow, soft sound of familiar footsteps emerged. This time you came by yourself. This time you didn’t just walk right by. You didn’t walk away. You didn’t let her break down into mere grains of sand and dust. You sat down next you her. You put your warm arm around her quivering shoulder. You let her shake in your arms. You heard her stifled sobs. You listened.

You listened closely and heard her heart slowly melt drop by drop. You heard her lips tear and you tasted the blood in her salty mouth. You heard her screaming silently. You heard her asking for someone to help her up. You heard.
You listened.
You didn’t walk right by again.
You didn’t just watch her helpless tears this time.
You listened to her breaking away.
You listened and you heard.