Originally written for Wattpad Short Story Contest "Poetry to Prose". Couldn't actually submit because I missed the deadline LOL.
The poem in the picture is the prompt I had chosen. Oh well. I am not sure if this is even the legit way to do it. Blah.
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His smile sprinkled the warmth of summer sunshine on my face.
A thousand lights of hope and desire reflected in his brown irises, while my heart sang the song of raw delight. Passion colored his words a wild blue, the shade of the shirt he wore.
Time cornered me.
Swallowing thickly, I responded to his words with what I prayed was a smile.
While my insides clenched to contain the excitement of having finally found him, after all these years of knowing and not knowing.
Soulmate.
What a heavy word. Eight letters. Carrying an infinite set of possibilities for the multitude of populations spanning this planet.
I didn't know what it meant until I met him.
We were strangers. We were fated to meet. To greet. To love.
And to cherish.
Promises threatened to escape my loose lips any moment. I held back. Curled my fists. Bit my tongue till it drew blood. I tasted the mistake of my actions before I could regret them.
And why would I regret? Because I knew I would do it wrong. At the wrong time. At the wrong place.
Where the skies were the blue that matched his shirt and the passion in his words.
I felt as if I would fall into the pits anytime. Lose myself, to time, to the rocks, to the insecurities, that haunted my mind and whispered insults to the heart that beat wildly in my chest.
You are plain!
You are nothing!
He looks so much better than you!
Are you sure he told you he liked you?
You are a reject!
You are a flimsy piece of an excuse of an existence!
Oh my God. Can you shut up?
I pinched my eyes shut, pushing the off button on my insecurities, pressing hard with fingers of steel, in the back of my mind, where the world wouldn't see me battling. I held my stomach, biting into my lips, distracting myself from the train of disturbing thoughts with a random tune. It reverberated my throat, the hum.
Until I realized he would hear. He would notice. And he would finally question my mental state of being.
I stopped before I got carried away.
"Is there something that you wish to ask me?"
An eager light gleamed from the depths of his eyes. I felt a little lost peering into them.
"Um, no, I really have nothing to ask..."
Wow, really. That sounds like what someone intelligent would say.
I was doing all of this wrong. From the corner of my eyes, I mentally willed my mother to come rescue me from my "babble-incohorentia". I was in the danger of saying something stupid in the next few moments.
She had her back facing me. She was thoroughly oblivious.
I smiled once more in his direction, trying to appear normal on the outside.
"So, tell me, what are your plans for the future?", he asked me in reply after a smile of his own.
I breathed a sigh of relief. This was easy!
Then, I began sharing my dreams with him. What my plans were. What I wanted out of life. I spoke softly, only for him to hear. It felt special, finally being able to voice my thoughts with someone who actually cared. I saw his attention in the furrow of his eyebrows, in the curiosity that darkened his eyes, in the way he had his gaze etched on to my face. The slant of his head told me he was committing every word I uttered into his memory. My eyes strayed away from his now and then since I had trouble holding his intense stare. I hoped I didn't offend him when that happened. My eyes always came back to his though, as if some internal part of me feared if he wasn't another figment of my imagination and wanted to confirm the same.
And I felt it. For the first time in my life.
I felt beautiful both inside and out.
The light in his eyes danced on my skin like fire. I felt special. I felt wanted. I felt the glow in my heart first, and it came out slowly, on my skin, on my face, in my deep smiles.
My insecurities turned into a dust cloud, whisking off into the skies of absentia.
I was beginning to transform.
A confident version of me replaced the earlier one. Sagging shoulders grew bones of their own, laughter escaped the cages of heart like a free bird. It wrapped his laughter, and I saw our laughter mingling, touching, joining hands and waltzing in the space between us.
At last, our laughter receded into small, soft smiles, that curved our cheeks and spread our lips.
