when love arrives.
alternative title : love doesn't always come when you want it to.
alternative alternative title: welcome love no matter whenever it appears , or at least try.
all i could see was you. all i could feel was my heart, beating a wild one in my chest, the kind of violent anger in a cage that makes the children wonder if the monkeys really are happy behind glass. all i could hear was the thrum of a beat, amplified lows, muted highs, the sound of learning music from another room. all i could be was there, with you.
little deaths, quick and simple. rapid succession, like a firing squad except no one's getting executed, no state v. name, it's me against myself. i know this isn't how this should play out. you know this isn't a fairytale forever. we keep playing this game, keep dancing around each other like comic book characters, killing each other only to bring ourselves back to life for round two.
all i can taste is peach and mint, oddly enough not the worst combination. all i can discern is the mess of bodies we wade through, the purple hue of the ceiling. all i can bear is your hand in mine, tugging me along, laughing. all i can understand is hephaestion and alexander, a soul in two bodies, mistaken for one another and acknowledging that there isn't a difference.
in all truth, we were condemned from the beginning. how could we have not seen this? in what blindness does cupid throw upon us that keeps us hopeful. and yet somehow, it felt like drowning face first in a puddle, this dried up riverbed, swallowing dirt and mud. under the bridge, so it seems, as it waits for us, smiling, knowing our story better than we do. it is not a unique story, i acknowledge that. wrong place, wrong time, i suppose. wrong place, wrong time, i choose to think.
all i may breathe is your needy sounds, erupting like an archangel orchestra from your throat. all i can undergo is a few precious seconds of your despair, lest my heart threaten to rip itself in two trying to mend yours. all i may bend is your heart, folding it into a paper crane, gentle, and handing it back to you as if i'm returning the same paper back to you. in theory, yes i am, because this is the exact same heart you gave me to start with, but in practice, in practice when you take something from someone, something they give you beyond any expectation of return, and you hand it back to them permanently changed, creased and formed into something they do not recognize, however beautiful this change may be, it will never be the same. i am sorry, i do not know what you would prefer. i am sorry, i did not ask to love your thin paper to life.
i have loved you for the last time. i have seen your smile for the last time. i have touched you for the last time. i have kissed you for the last time. stumbling out the door, i think it must be a vision, a film, a cinematic masterpiece, a dream. i watch, as an audience member, or as an avid reader, or as a dreamer does, rooted in my place, as you smile at me, a sad and hopeful look. you walk away, head hung.
all i might call echos in my head, bouncing off the walls of this small concrete chamber, this little castle you have built into a home with your meek attempts, your few dying flowers, your crooked paintings propped up instead of hung because i don't even have nails here for you to gift me artwork. it is nearly laughable, i think, as i look at this factory frame bed, bolted to the ground, and all i can manage to see in it is the colourful sheets you brought in, and the lights you wrapped around this cold frame that seem to glow in the night. all i might say to you in that moment, i scramble to find words, i scramble to sift through years and years of cheesy romantic comedies watched and thoroughly enjoyed with my sister huddled on a worn couch, i scramble to sift through years and years of books and television, of all those moments when a character yells out the perfect declaration of love, i scramble to sift through every whispered line we have exchanged betwixt ourselves. i do not remember who said what at this point. i do not remember if it matters. nevermind that, i need to have to, i need to win you back like all those 90s film protagonists, and i need you, more than kat needs patrick and i know you love 10 things i hate about you because its exactly your brand of 90s rom com takes a modern twist on a classic tale. just like clueless. another of your favourites. here i am, aimlessly rambling about nothing because i'm already grieving you and you're not even gone yet. and suddenly, in front of me, those words. and at last, i have found it. i have found the perfect thing to say to you.
all i may scrap together to say to you is lost upon the wind when i realize in my frantic search, you have already left. and i am not sure how long i have been standing here staring, trying to find the perfect line to deliver. i will save it. just in case i see you again, and i can do it right this time. i will tuck these words into my waistband and carry them around with me. i will save it. just in case.
i'm sure we'll meet in the spring. i'm sure we'll see each other again. i'm sure i'll recognize you across the plaza, that's why i only spare a glance, lest i stand there staring into the square, gawking at strangers, hoping to see some reminisce of your bright eyes.
spring comes, and leaves us. i am not so sure we will see each other again. nevertheless, i will keep these words. i will save them. just in case.
the following spring brings with it flower buds. but not you. i shall save these words still. just in case.
writing this now, these words hold little sacredness, besides stolen memory. but still, just in case.
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