You build a wall. An iron brick wall. You build it for years, adding brick by brick, making it stronger every day. You don’t leave any cracks; you don’t leave a hole you can peep through. It’s full proof. An iron brick wall, keeping you away from them. Keeping them away from you.
You keep going, until one day, the bricks in your hands turn to dust. The wall starts to rust, then it disappears. You can’t explain it, but somebody’s on the other side, and you can’t stop them anymore.
You panic, you try harder and harder, replacing the iron with stone, then with wood. But nothing works. With every step they take, your wall becomes even more impossible to build. And maybe, just maybe, you don’t mind.
Maybe you wanted them to come along. Maybe you wanted to see who could break through. So you let them.
And slowly, sunlight comes along. Trees start to grow and the birds start to chirp. The wind blows through your hair and you start thinking that maybe, Summer could last forever. Your iron brick wall is gone, and now, you are free.
Your feet touch the grass, your eyes adjust to the sunlight and you begin to breathe. And this person, this magical person is right there beside you. You don't understand how, or why. But the world feels whole again.
And then they sweep you off your feet. They pull the ground from underneath you, and you start to soar. You soar higher and higher into summer bliss, until nothing exists but sunshine and trees.
You adapt to the soaring. You buy a parachute, and keep it aside, just in case.
You don’t think you need it. You don’t think you ever will.
But you do.
It takes you by surprise; you have no time to grab the parachute. All at once, the grass is gone and the sun starts to set. The wind gets colder, the birds are gone. And you know.
You’ve fallen. And now you’re lying on the ground, surrounded by nothing but the dust of your bricks. You can’t get up. Something weighs you down. It aches. And that ache starts to creep through your veins, slowly poisoning the whole of you.
It gets harder to breathe, harder to think, harder to just, be.
So you build. From the ground up. Another brick wall. Brick by brick, you build and you build. Until somebody else comes along.