dreamland

eight

I remember the moment, when I felt it
for you, all too well.

It had been a humid, sticky day that made you want to strip your clothes off and even your skin.

Everyone was going home after having their days filled with assignment after assignment, after book reports and presentations.
But I wasn't because I already was home.

I saw you across the green grass and torrid sun and mob of anxious people to get home. You were up against that tree, sucking on what I assumed was a strawberry flavored ice pop. Your best friend was next to you, removing the white wrapper of the orange ice pop in his hand.

I stopped walking, as I had no flight to catch or place to be like everyone else.
I stopped because I felt the desire to kiss your lips with my hands wrapped around your neck.  The desire spread over me, so fast that I felt almost dizzy and I would have fallen my head over my heels, if my feet hadn't been rooted to the ground your were rooted to too. You were talking to your best friend and then paused when you saw me watching you. I had the urge to kiss you right then but for some reason I didn't. I now believe it was just a gut feeling. I wouldn't have been able to kiss you there. Not in front of all those eyes and gossipy lips. I couldn't because you had been with her for already a long time now. I would have been the slut—I think that's what I still am to people—the one who came in between the two of you. But I just waved at you, in a daze under the heavy heat, and turned away, smiling, because the seed of that flower has just been planted. You unknowingly did what you had been wanting to do for awhile now. Because at first you were any other guy, remember, until that day. You weren't what I wanted at first and that's why you kept insisting so many times, because you too were stubborn and persistent.

You were like me in that way. But now, the more I think of it, you are nothing like me. I would never have done what you did to me. I couldn't have. Especially not when I claimed to be in love with you. The love I had for you was so great that it seeped past my skin and into my dreams.

I would awake because the glow from the sun or the streetlight shining on your face was all fabricated. I wouldn't let myself be pulled into your trap all over again. I had to be smarter than this. I had to be because I never was during all that time.

I owed that to myself like you owed
me for all that you did.