What do you do when you love someone more than you love yourself?
You wake up to the sound of their voice.
Except it's not their voice.
It's your alarm clock
Your interrupted dream
Your imagination
Never your reality
You drag yourself out of bed
Three times.
You couldn't seem to get up the first two tries but by the third you've got it
By the third you remember it may not be a great day, but it's another one to see them
You blink a lot
Not because your eyes are itching
Or because you've just woken up
But because Every time you shut your eyes you can find a piece of them in the darkness behind your lids
A piece of their smile
A fleck of their eyes, always bright
The curvature of their nose, their lips
The flash of their teeth when they laugh, loudly
Almost as if they wanted to share their joy
You open your eyes because you know it was never for you
You continue your journey
Cursing yourself because it's not a journey
It's just another morning
But it always feels so long
It's always consumed with the thought of them
You tell your self It's just for a second
But seconds are minutes and minutes are hours and before you know it you're fucking late
You've already gone through so many clothes your wrists are sore but it's worth it right?
As long as you look good enough to catch sight of them.
You leave the house
Wondering if you'll bump into them today
Knowing you'll bump into them today
Because just last night you've memorized their schedule, their stops, places they like to be
Not on purpose
Of course not
You tell yourself you wanted Starbucks that day
Or that you needed to stop at that class just to sharpen your pencil
You tell yourself you had an urge to go to the library
Curl up in the chair besides theirs because it was the only one available
You tell them you've been dying to read Dracula or moby dick because you were
Not because you've seen them with it
You spark conversation
About vampires or whales perhaps
You couldn't remember
You were never good at multi tasking and couldn't figure out how to hold on to the words they said at the same time you fell into a trance by their voice
It was a short conversation of course
Just long enough for you to convince them to take your number
You wait hours for a text
But are hours really hours when they make days and days make weeks and weeks make months and months make years
Aren't hours really years
Or is that only how it feels
They text you
"Hey"
Don't reply too fast you remind yourself
Reply in ten minutes
No nine
Maybe eight
Six
Seven
Five
Four
Three
Two
One?
You reply 32 seconds later.
You despise yourself in that moment
You'll seem desperate you say
But they reply quickly too
Instantly your night feels a lot like clouds
Soft, calming, velvety
It feels like this a while
You two go on
weeks
Months
It starts to feel like love
But you should've asked if they felt it to
Because before long you remember that clouds were never built to support your weight and it was only a matter of time before you'd be dropped
Quickly
You tell yourself don't cry when you hit the ground, another cloud will pick you up
Replies aren't quick anymore
Never 32 seconds
Or even 32 minutes
You haven't spoke to each other in 32 hours
And of course hours always manage to become days
You wonder what happened but then you remember you never asked if they were on a cloud too
In a dream too
If they were happy too
If they ever wanted this too
Then you tell yourself
You convinced them to take your number
And before long you almost begin to hate them as much as you hate yourself
And I suppose the key word really is almost
Because, well?
You never do.
