n. an image that somehow becomes lodged deep in your brain-maybe washed there by a dream, or smuggled inside a book, or planted during a casual conversation-which then grows into a wild and impractical vision that keeps scrambling back and forth in your head
{Let's love each other just for a moment.}
It's not a crime to remember a vivid image in your mind and twist it into something painfully unrealistic because after all it's your picture to own in your memory.
I.
The real image is when we'd be stuck sat beside each other in the ungodly heat of the school bus in a very normal afternoon. The crappy air conditioning only gives its service to you as it's situated right above you. I'd avoid looking into your eyes and lock my gaze on the windows instead that lines the walls beside your head.
We have that strong distance of a gap between us as we sat. A clear indication of personal space I didn't want to cross. I'm beside you yet I will not force myself inside your bubble. Our knuckles are gripping the same backrest of the seat in front of us and I would observe the obvious contrast of our fingers.
You're sun-kissed and marked by the rays of the sun in a way that it lets people know how much you've gone through under the sun to make sure you have gotten its deep color effect on your skin with much due effort. Meanwhile, I'm too pale and looked like I have not gone under the sun to receive its love and warmth. Too scared to risk and make known my effort. Not marked by anything memorable or remarkable. Plain pale and white.
How come the sun can love you this much to leave a deep lasting mark on you?
When we fought over a single piece of paper, I didn't struggle much and let you win. Personal space was not a defined term in any alphabet of all the languages in the world.
I would feel my eyes crinkling as I smile towards my pale knuckles and I would do the mistake of looking right at you as you do the same thing and I'd realize how much a smile can really change a person. I did the mistake of observing the way you smile even though it's not directly at me. After all, most art forms don't need a lot of audience to view the masterpiece, one person is enough and content to admire the worth.
i.i
The imagined image starts off with how I'll shamelessly reach up above you and split the air conditioner with you saying it's too hot to handle. I would point out how different our knuckles look like and when you'd start to protest how much you hate how disgustingly dark your complexion is, I would have hit you with all the sense I can muster in a punch and tell you how you can still be remarkable in my eyes.
I'd sit a bit closer so I don't have to feel myself falling off the goddamn edge of the seat. I wouldn't worry much about it then because it was just you.
I would have struggled more as we both held on to the piece of paper for dear life. I would have mustered up the courage and looked at you in the eye and ask you to let go. I wouldn't have to be too self-conscious as I dug my elbow on your knee. I wouldn't have to be too quiet as I swore at you so loudly.
Finally, I'd look at you as you smile. I wouldn't try to hide how I tried to memorize your features at your happiest moments. I would show you how I would look at you as if it's not so bad to be the you that you are at that moment. I would have made you think that I enjoy the little moments like this where it's just a pleasant hot afternoon of traffic and I'm sitting beside a person that can make me feel so content. I'd let you know how comforting you are. I would tell you how you shouldn't hide your smile much.
And you would look at me back as if with just that one look of mine, you would know what you were really missing on.
ii.
The real image starts with the way I would be perched above a plastic chair, fingers poised over the black and white keyboard keys with the skin of my thighs seemingly stuck on the plastic due to nervousness or maybe it was because I just didn't know how to handle the warmth of another body stood beside me.
You're awfully tall, I get it. Stupid hips aligned by the top of my ears. God, why didn't you just sit down too?
As you'd play the scale, I would follow and when the inevitable mistake happens, your leg brushes barely against my hoodie-covered arm and my eyes will still follow where your fingers press upon the keys. As I play, I hold a solid stare upon the keys and suppressed every desire of looking up to you to see how you looked like. You were my teacher. I live off the feeling of knowing if I was doing well or not. But I didn't dare. I would just hear your hum of affirmation and I'd grind my teeth because apparently that's enough.
But then you told me how good I was at following you immediately. Idiot, it's because you taught me how to do it. Do you realize how this was the first time you actually taught me something practical in life? And I aced it.
(If only you could teach me Math. Unfortunately, I happen to teach that shit to you and look at how we're still both jack shit dumb towards it.)
Still not daring to look up, you asked me if we can play together and I refused. I can't fall this much. Too late.
ii.ii
I would have asked you to get another damn chair. Or we could have just shared but two tall people in a single chair would be a disaster. Wouldn't hurt to try, would it?
I would have asked you to play me another scale and teach me how to do it not realizing I wouldn't get another chance for you to do so. I would tell you how unfortunate it was I didn't have fingers like you do because my own don't reach the keys the way yours does and I would tell you with a pure genuine comment that I think you on a piano is one of the best decisions you have ever made.
I would have accepted your offer to play together despite me inevitably looking like a fucking fool because in the real world, that is what I am for you anyway. How stupid of me to not know I already fell in that much.
And with how we would have played together, you would realize I can try to be someone that could be in sync with you. In music. In comfort. In life.
-to be continued i guess-
