foreign space - poetry&prose

pale moonlight

i’m afraid, that the worst thing that could happen to a person is their what-if.

and i’ve had you for quite a while now. sparkling, shimmering laugh, the girl from next door, flitting and vanishing and pulling me along — oh, odelia, won’t you be cruel? won’t you twist my heart and tell me you don’t want me? why, why, why keep me around?

you’re my friend, you tell me. and i have to say yes, because despite the five a.m.s where i lay on my bed with my collar popped open and my bed a mess and my thoughts full of how i will never be good enough for you, we know i’m more logical than most. maybe a little more “emotionally mature”. that’s how you put it. so i have to say yes. that makes sense. it’s logical, because it’s childish to ruin what we have for a childish pursuit.

i don’t want to be your friend, i realize some time later. i don’t think i could be your friend. because i have spent too long painting your image under the soothing silver of pale moonlight, thinking of the curve of your back and your laugh and every single thing you have ever told me — and this is how i ruin it.

i take a joke too far, you send back nothing but the lack of words, and i know i’ve ruined it. i think i’ve ruined it. in fact, i take it so far i hope i’ve ruined it — for there is solace in knowing i am your friend, but there is torture in knowing you could never want me back. and yet with every “i’m special huh,” and “you’re interesting. you’re weird.. i’m always wondering about what you’re thinking,” you know. you know how badly i do, and how i’d never let go of that.

so i’m hoping i’ve ruined it. sweet voice and golden flecks of words, i pray to god we never cross paths again. i pray i never wax poetry for you after this, and i hope in the future we will be so far far away that every glance and every art performance i watch and every girl i kiss as we stumble into my bed will not be tainted with “what if? what if? what if?” i hope you hate me. i really do.

“i’d be angry if someone was at fault,” i told you. “and this isn’t something either of us can control.”

“wouldn’t it be a natural reaction?” you protest, laboured with experience and lessons learnt. i didn’t understand then. but as i told you, you were always special.

for the girl who’s known i’ve loved her for two years — this is my goodbye
200811