Wanderer ☽ { Howl } ☽ FIN

The most confused we ever get is when we’re trying to convince our heads of something our hearts know is a lie.And I'm in a constant state of confusion, I'm the constantly spinning compass needle that couldn't remember which direction she was to call home and how she ended up marooned with nothing but the sun to call mother and moon to call father and stars to whisper her fears to as her bloodshot eyes struggled against the mists of sleep at the feet of dawn. 

When my eyes open to see the sun all I can do is cry. Scream out every ounce of agony hidden in the nooks of my crook heart to the infant baby pink and gold streaking across the sky above. Belt out every note I know in a horrific concertina so the world can know my pain and, for a second, I can convince myself that the world we live in is sympathetic. Because waking to a morning meant I fell asleep, meant I was too weak for them. I die in my sleep. All I achieved, all the distances I've made, all the people I've met or any fragments of memory I recovered are tracelessly terminated. Maybe I was heading north because that was the direction I decided was "home", or maybe I was walking to refill my canteen at the creek and collapsed in exhaustion after five days without rest. Maybe I rolled around in my sleep and have my back turned on the family I think is waiting for me, that I think exists at all. 

The only life I remember before this one of blurred forests and brief stints in alleyways was a hot flare, a crash, a scream that was not my own, and then a chill unlike any winter's breath. I was colder in so many more terms than just in flesh and bone, I was cold. So cold. A bite so icy and all consuming it could rob you of your very memory of having ever been warm.And it did. And it robbed the rest of the tomb of my mind until there was nothing left but an unmarked grave.

And every three, four, six if I'm well fed and particularly determined, days I have to start new. I die in my sleep, and I'm reborn every morning. That's what I started calling it after a while. Being "reborn". Because it helps me preserve what little sanity I have left. Because when I thought of my memory loss as my rapid destruction I did nothing but lie in a ditch and do nothing but die. But awaken to nothing to have and nothing to hold and no one to speak to and no one to have and no one to hold and I was perfectly fine and went back to sleep. And it wasn't living at all. And what few moments I spent awake I spent wishing I could die. And maybe life is easier in my dreams. Maybe in my dreams I can see their faces again and remember my home and know what I'm looking for, what I'm living for. But I wouldn't really know. I can never remember what I dream.

And I lie there, starving, wondering if my family was searching for me nearly as hard as I was for them. Maybe they were dead. Maybe I didn't even have one to begin with. Thoughts like poison leaked into my mind and I welcomed them whole-heartedly, hoping they could intoxicate my brain and ease my lonely anguish. 

And then the stars began to fall. Across the sky, leaving hot silver trails behind them for mere moments before they faded away. And I closed my eyes to make the wish I've been wishing for for the past few days. Several days. Weeks. Years. Hours. Time was immeasurable when your memory is broken and you have both all the time in the world and none at all, all at once. 

I want to go home.

And then I started to cry because I was so goddamn hungry. And I started to cry because it made me sad to think that if I had a family, they were under the same star storm I was but there I was all alone. And I started to cry because I knew I was getting sleepy and I was going to forget the falling stars. And I started to cry because I made a wish on dying stars. Stars had to die so that I could have a wish to find a family I might not even have.

My eyelids were getting heavy and I was going to die again. And I cried harder because I could see my death approaching like fatal tides attacking the shore of my memory and I still wanted to live. And I didn't want the stars to die, no matter how pretty. 

But stars have to die so that stars could be born. Entire nebulas have to collapse so that a star can be born. So I collapsed. I crumbled, I succumbed to the night because I knew this is not my destruction, this is my birth.

And when I find my family, I'll tell them of how I learned to die and still survive. I'll tell them how I had two or ten or ten thousand lifetimes of knowledge every day I awoke and had to begin again and again and again. I'll tell them of how I checked behind every hill and mountain for a family my memory had forgotten by heart never stopped beating for. And I'll tell them of how I--

--I'm awake.

The sun has barely broken it's hellish yoke over the horizon and I start to cry out. Screeches so painful they cut like razors up their escape from my throat. I fell asleep.

I close my eyes and try to remember anything from the day before. Did I eat? Did I speak? Did I decide on my new route for the next handful of hours until I come apart again? I look to the pockets of my coat and find loose change and scraps of paper reading "YOUR FAMILY IS OUT THERE" "DON'T SLEEP" "FALLEN STAR" "PATRICK" "DISTRICT 2? 5? 9? 11? 1? 4? 2? 7? 5? 6? 5? 5? 7? 10?  3?" "F.R.L."

None of it makes sense and tear them apart in frustration. I throw them into the sky as a bastardized birthday celebration. I'm crying. And maybe my weakness is deserving in all of this. I'm sobbing. 5, 10, 15, 20, 15, 30... 263. There are tally marks trenched in charcoal black on the left arm but I don't know what they mean. I want to get up and run for help but I'm not entirely sure which way is help.I'm not entirely certain what I need help with. A hundred thousand worries are darting through my head and I haven't a single memory.I fall to the ground and place my head between my knees.

Start from square one.

What's your name?

Haven't a clue.

What's that on the inside of your wrist?

Tally marks, but I don't know how th--

Your other wrist.

Oh, a tattoo. I think.

What does it say?

Howl.