Saints and Sinners

V | the pretty stranger

Pov: Vilhelm Andersen

Last night, sleepless and perched precariously on my window ledge, I surrendered to the impulse and wrote a poem about him.

Brown eyes. 

If that is all I can claim of him, all that is within my grasp, so be it—I will immortalize him in art, for that is what he is.

My art—my poetry.

Morning arrives, and I'm cocooned in the warmth of three heavy comforters. Propped against the wall, my notebook rests on my lap, surrounded by a constellation of crumpled papers, as if they might shield me from the heartbreak that looms when our eyes inevitably meet.

I glance down at the words etched in my notebook, two versions of the truth—one I despise, the other I merely dislike—yet both capture his essence in ways that words can scarcely convey. Even so, this is the closest I can come to an explanation, a futile attempt to articulate how he has managed to ensnare my soul.

Ink smudges mar the pages, spreading wildly across the paper, my hands marked with both tattoos and stains—my skin a canvas drowning in black, all for a boy who appeared and vanished in the blink of an eye, like a wisp of smoke.

I read the poem aloud, my voice a whisper, as if it were a secret because it is.

Perhaps I didn't want it to be a secret after all. My poetry, so burdened with fragments of myself, is now interwoven with the memory of him. If there exists even the faintest chance that he might catch a glimpse of this reflection, I'm willing to take it. 

Surely, he'd recognize himself in the verses.

If a person can be a poet, they can be the poem too.

That may not hold true for me, for I lack the grace to be rendered into poetry, but he—he deserves to be cherished, adored and loved like a poem is by a passing spectator. 

For now, I'm merely that spectator, the observer, longing for him to hear my silent call.

I yearn for him to grasp the essence of what it means to be transmuted into verse—a tempestuous, unruly poem, reflecting the chaotic workings of my mind, a piece of art trapped in madness. Perhaps someone, ideally him, might untangle the knotted threads of my inner turmoil.

With this thought in mind, I recite the other poem, my voice growing louder, as I fix my gaze on the rain-slicked bench, its surface darkened by the loud awakening cries of the sky.