dreamland

two

Perhaps I really was easily amused as my friends claimed me to be. I'm not too sure as this is the only way I've ever been. They said that with smallest bit of glitter or color, I was already up and grinning. But I don't know if it was the amusement you stirred in me that derived me from noticing the truth. Or if it was the snapshot of you kissing me back in the crepuscular spot that kept rewinding and replaying in my mind. Even so, I was already so sure that I wanted it all from you.

You would come by at night when everyone else was asleep or too busy hiding secrets of their own. And I would obliviously come out to see you, unaware that what we were doing was the real, big secret. You would kiss me fast and I felt like our saliva combined watered the flower in my chest. Each brush of the lips felt like a slow drizzle on that flower, and each time a new petal would open up.

If I would have known that your time, your kisses, your words were shared; then all the magic would have burned out. It would have dissipated faster than a firework does on the Fourth of July. Yet I was like a child with a brand new toy, one that lit up and danced and twirled. I very stupidly allowed my heart to drum steadily over your whispers on the phone. I overlooked the fact that your visits were always short when the sky was blue and the sun was bright. It seemed like all the moments I held so close to my heart as I cried and cried heavily, were all spent in the darkest of hours. And it made sense that dark memories brought tears to my eyes in dark rooms.

It was so awfully difficult—which was nothing of a surprise, because that's how it'd always been for me.

I wanted to rip you out of my skin and rub at my lips until they bled. I didn't want a trace of you yet when I found myself rubbing too hard, I held back. I idiotically still wanted to have you in my mind, as you had lived there for so long. I should have kicked you out though, without remorse. After all, the spot in my mind was actually somewhat of a cheap motel for you. Your home, was elsewhere. It was the place you always returned to, regardless of what happened within those four colorless walls. I figure now that it didn't really matter when you kissed me and told me to just understand. To understand why you had been late yet again or why you hadn't even come by altogether. To understand why me coming to you was just too complicated. To understand why you couldn't stay just a minute any longer. It didn't matter, all that effort, all that time was just wasted. But I was just too busy counting the moles on your cheeks and shoulders. I was so enamored with the way you held me close to you, and how that felt just so easy. To just be. To be with you. The way you spoke to me and how you listened, how you honestly cared. Or so it appeared you did. Because then you were already taking off and I was left behind; waiting, always waiting. What a fool, what an idiot, what an ignoramus.

I yearned for you even though I already had you in my grasp. Even then, I think, deep inside, within me, I knew I really didn't have you. But because I wanted you so badly and stubbornly, I wouldn't let you go. I would tell myself to comprehend you, to for a second, place myself in your shoes. God, could I ever be empathetic when it came to you and your mishaps. I would do so, successfully, every time as you made me smile and absolutely forget. I would have no remembrance of my clenched jaw as I stared at the phone, awaiting something that failed to arrive. I would have no reminisce of the way my cheeks would flush as I sat outside my home or lingered outside the cinema as the minutes ticked on. I wouldn't have recollection of your frustrated exhales as I asked you to stay just awhile longer. It would all vanish as quickly as your presence did so every time. And you made it so simple to forget. The fogginess that was your fault seemed to clear with the blink of your brown eye. Your lips stroking on my skin, making it flushed at the drag of your teeth made me forget the red shade that was in my cheeks earlier. Your voice and groans in my left ear made me forget the long minutes without it. Your hands linked to mine made me believe that you were still with me, that this could still work. It was such reassurance that you were here with me after all. I had to feel it, I ached to feel it. I needed a reminder and most when I felt myself falling in love. I was falling in love while this fell apart.

How ludicrous of me to have chosen the most apt of moments to do so. I should have known that to have done so, would have hurt. Would have hurt me horribly and gruesomely. It would have been like climbing up to the top of that snow covered mountain in a postcard found at a bookstore in our town. I would have made it past the trees and flowers and birds until I reached the peak. And then, after all of it, after the beauty and the fear and the slips; to throw myself right off. That's how it was going to feel. I would fall, with the wind blowing harshly in my ears and the ground rushing to my body. I would fall while looking up at the blue sky, not knowing that soon I would feel a deeper shade of blue. All the while, I would have been under the impression that you would be the one to catch me.

How wrong, how stupid.

You were too busy already holding someone else.

You were already holding her.