dreamland

thirty-one

I ran and ran with my coat flapping in the wind and my hair tangling into brown messy knots.

There were all these emotions just blubbering inside, sitting at the center of my stomach.
And all those emotions—I didn't know how to get them out. I don't think there was an escape or exit for them.

The tears fell anyway.
They fell because, oh god I don't know why they fell. I guess they fell because he hadn't told me what I wanted to hear. They fell because even when I knew that he was the one I wanted, you managed to squeeze in and infiltrate my mind. You found a way to still unsettle me and make your mark.
You.
You.

I realized that I was running towards you or at least the last place I knew you lived in.
I didn't think I knew what would be my next move if you weren't home.

But you were the only one I wanted to see.

I ran even faster and my feet ached because I was wearing the worst possible shoes for running. God I was just so tired and upset and confused and fucking overwhelmed and deeply fucking unsettled with your being here.
You were my problem, you were the insecurity on my shoulders and the darkness under my eyes.
You.
I could just feel your eyes on my back and on my hair and on my palms and in between my elbows.
I couldn't believe you.
You were unbelievable.
I remember when you used to be unbelievable to me even before. I thought you were something else, a boy, a boy with something else, something not even a fucking poet could depict. Yet I was wrong and right.
You are still unbelievable. Just so unbelievable. Yet no longer in the haphazard and
bedroom-dreams-way anymore.

I opened the tiny gate door and walked to your door, with frustration and fury and vexation making my heart race like a junkie's. I knocked on the door with my hand in a hard fist that was numb with February cold.
It didn't matter if you were asleep or in the room upstairs, you would hear me.
You would.

The wind that made my eyes sting and my nostrils burn with each and every inhale, and it blew my nappy hair around in circles.

The paint on your door was fresh, I realized, after my fist began to turn white.

You opened the door, and you were not with a shred of surprise on your face.
You knew I was going to come to you one day.
I could see the smugness on your lashes so that when you blinked at my image, I knew.
That filled me with heavier and hotter emotions.

I just want you to fucking leave, I said before you could say anything.

Then why are you crying, you asked as if my tears were of longing for you.
You were still so so unbelievably smug.
You thought you knew.
God were you wrong.

Another tear rolled down and I said, I'm crying because I'm angry, I'm angry that you're still fucking here.

You stepped out closer to me and closed the door to your house.

It's him, right, you asked and your eyes begged me for honesty.
I opened my mouth after wiping my cheeks with my hands in fists.
You spoke again, you interrupted me before I could even say anything, you don't want him, you shook your head at me, that day, that day that I came back, I saw you leave, you smiled just a little, but not before I saw your eyes.

I exhaled and said, I was wrong, that night was all wrong, I said closing my eyes which let more tears escape.
I recalled my skirt and his hand on my knees and his eyes that were actually looking at me for once. Not everything was wrong that night.

I opened my eyes, I do still think about you and I hate that I do, I said.
You reached for me and I stepped back because you were wrong, so fucking wrong and far from the truth. You were twisting my words into a whole other thing.

I think about what you did to me, I think about her, I cried more, I think about her and how fucking beautiful she was and how much I wish you would have never sought me when you had her, I sobbed, I don't know why you would have wanted me when you had her, I wiped my mouth, I wish you just had never even spoken to me, I said sobbing so that my words were incoherent.

Don't fucking say that, you wanted it too, don't you remember, you asked your lip curling with more vexation than I thought I had come with. You kissed me, you told me you loved me, you would beg me to stay, you would, you would, you would, you repeated pointing at me like if there was someone else around I could confuse your words were for.

I kept sobbing and said, I know, I know, but that's the fucking past, it's the past.
I cried more and wiped my face, I guess it's something both of us can't understand, I said looking down at the dead grass.

You grabbed my shoulders and you said, exactly, it is the past, so then why are you acting as if that's where we are still living, you inquired. Your eyes were wide and your cheekbones ran up so high, so dramatically high and your skin seemed tired and sloppy on your bones.
You were still unbelievable.
So unbelievably stubborn and unbelievably unsettling.

It's you that's doing that too, I said, breathing lowly.

Your grip hardened and loosened and you said, I said I was sorry then, do I have to do it again, you looked run down.
It won't change it, so why should I fucking say it, your eyes roamed to my mouth, let's just do this, let's do the now, you said coaxing me back into that web of lies and wrongness.
You really thought you were winning.

I glared at your face and said, you're right, your face seemed triumphant but I wasn't done.
I said, it won't change it and that's what I can't forget.

Your face melted back down and that made me feel triumphant.
I blinked once and then twice and said, I hate you, you know, I hate what you did to me and I hate that you make me feel like this, I ripped myself away from you in disgust, curling my eyebrows and lip.
I shook my hands out to bring the blood rushing back and said as I opened my eyes back up, I hate that I see you and her when I look in my mirror.
I know that I sounded dramatic and crazy and wild. I knew, I knew.
But I knew more that I was finally getting it out. Those emotions that I was confused about.
They were all targeting you, the source, the ugly, the harm.

I breathed out and said, as I looked out at the six p.m. dark skies, I hate that she's so gorgeous and I feel so bland and dull while she's so happy and free from you, I said pointing this time.

You shook your head, just stop, stop mentioning her, she's irrelevant, you said your eyes set and locked on mine.

No, no she's not, I shook my head, she's everything that keeps me up at night and makes me remember you when I don't want to remember you, fuck, I said at the ground but really it was to you, I pushed my hair back from my face and said, I hate you.

No you don't, you said your eyes, surprisingly, filled with tears of your own to shed.
They didn't cause me pain or anything, not even pity or a plain baffled feeling.
You were irrelevant here, she wasn't.
Baby, you don't, you said and you looked so deep into me but not deep enough, because I don't think you could see my inside anymore, as you once could anyway and so more of your tears fell.

Don't call me baby, I said, emotionless, don't even say my name, I said and a car drove by slowly.

Neither of us said anything as I simply thought about her.

You ruined us you know, you just had to lie to her, I paused, and to me, and now I'm the one left the most ruined here.
I turned away and wiped my eyes but there were no tears to wipe.
They had already dried on my skin.

I left and I hoped you wouldn't follow because now I felt at least a tiny bit relived. The feeling unsettling my stomach was gone now. I think I could go to bed tonight without waking and staring at the five on my clock turn into a six and then into a seven and on and on through the crepuscular night.
I think that maybe one day soon or far, who knows, this would just be a bad nightmare I'll recall briefly with pieces missing.
I missed him.

I couldn't look at you, feel you, believe you, comprehend you anymore.
And I couldn't stop thinking of her.
But I had to one day, it all had to stop one day.