dreamland

thirty

I kept hearing voices and yells that sounded like my name or like birds' cries when they migrate somewhere hot when the seasons change to something cold. I would hear them in dreams and sometimes in the simple day, in daydreams.
It was like they really wanted me to listen. I don't think I could.
I don't think I was ready.

I said goodbye to my best friend and she went on smiling and denying that she actually felt something.

We both knew she had and still did.

But she wasn't one to discuss all the mushiness and tenderness that flowed in her chest like I was. There was no time to talk about me so I was left flooded with thoughts of myself. I was inundated by unsaid words and preoccupations that swallowed up my leisurely, nonsensical thoughts.

How full of myself I had become.

Yet the thoughts about myself weren't entirely about me, there was another character involved too. I paced around my bedroom as I thought and thought about going to see him. I kept thinking; you were gonna follow, you were going to follow and see and watch and lurk.

But then I didn't fucking care.

I decided I wouldn't care anymore. I could do that. I had the power and control, right?

I wanted you to see, I wanted you to already know who was occupying the red room in me. It was my life, it was mine.

So I went to see him. I stopped on the way there for some cigarettes and with numb fingers I lit one and blew the smoke. The smoke escaped my lips and went out the tiny crack of my car window. I was fucking freezing but I felt that I could ignore it, for at least the car ride. I was a fucking masochist and never had I been one more than now; racing to see someone who didn't want to see me.

I knocked on the door and he was the one to answer as if he knew I would return.

I was glad.
I didn't want to see his mother whom clearly did not like me.

I took a sharp drag and it made my lungs expand uncomfortably but still, it didn't feel as uncomfortable as this did. He watched me take it, that's all he did, watch as I nervously smoked at his doorstep.

I looked into his eyes and said, I'm tired.
He waited and I said, I'm tired of coming here and being honest, when you aren't.

Then why do you keep coming, just stop coming, he blurted before I could close my lips.

I played with my cigarette and looked into his eyes, and then away, into the crack of the door.
No, I will keep coming, because I need to know, okay, I need to, I said. I smoked some more and the wind blew a trail of smoke back at my face.

What, what do you need to know, he asked tiredly, stepping out and closer.
I backed up before he could step on my shoe and ended up dropping my cigarette.

I cursed and looked behind me and then at him, as I thought about you and what you had said. I was ever so conscious of his eyes and then of the other pair, yours, that was watching me right now.

I felt my head and felt nothing, there wasn't pain, it was gone. The bruise had never been all that bad but you just wanted a reason to look like a hero, to seem trustworthy.

I couldn't trust you. I wouldn't. I didn't. Not when she was in the same town, smiling and looking so so pretty at all moments.

What do you need to know, he asked so indifferently.

I brushed my hair back and said, was it because I'm not pretty enough.
I really couldn't get her pretty face out of my head.

He had his arms crossed and said what, in a question, like if what I had said was so impossibly complex.