ramblings

There is a light outside my bedroom window and it flickers on and off. Like it’s a motion detector and it can tell when the butterflies in my stomach are flying rampant and when I’ve been able to calm myself down. Off and on; somewhere between helpful and annoying, somewhere between light and dark. Somewhere between laughing and crying. It flickers on and it makes me think of the way he smiled and it flickers off and it makes me think of the way he cried and the way I wanted to gather him up in my arms forever and whisper him stories that never happened.

I got uncomfortable around him easily because I knew that I could do anything at all and he would still love me and I didn’t know what to do with that kind of power. We would sit on the hill across from his work overlooking my old elementary school and he would watch the way I had no idea how to communicate with him. We would look at each other and he wouldn’t flinch when our eyes met and I didn’t know what that meant so I would kiss him and try to force myself to feel something and then when I felt something I would kiss him again to kill whatever it was I was feeling.

And he would smoke and I would tell him he shouldn’t smoke and I hated myself for sounding like a mother and he liked me for sounding like I cared. And he would drink and I would say that I didn’t drink and I hated myself for sounding like I thought I was better and he liked me for not being like everyone else in his life.

And he would cut himself and I would tell him that he shouldn’t and I hated myself for looking after him. And he liked me because I noticed.

The light turns off. The light turns on. The way he would hold my hand even when I didn’t want him to. The way he wanted me even after I had left him for someone else. The way he never asked me questions he didn’t want an answer to. The way he put his arms around my stomach at a concert and the way I felt proud to be there with him and he felt proud to be there with me. Like we were both saying to every one else: “look what I have, this person is mine.”

The way I smelled like someone else. The way he knew but didn’t ask because he didn’t want to know. The way I wanted to cry when he told me he loved me. The way I have forgotten what it means to love someone else. The way I have forgotten how to cry.

The light turns off.