charlie brown
you're listening, focusing on the top of her head as she leans out over the fence to avoid looking at either of us. this story isn't pretty, or neat, or easy to tell. her voice rises & falls with the rhythm of the waves. i'm trying to focus, trying to listen.
but i can see your face.
so i am lost somewhere in one of my universes.
the one i hate the most,
where puzzle pieces & numbers & fragments of color that i don't recall even seeing, much less taking note of; suddenly collide into a picture. an image i didn't see coming. (how is it that i never see these truth bombs coming until they are fully formed in my mind? who invented this instant connect-the-dots processor? can i return it for a refund? i'd rather realize things slowly or not at all. the human mind needs time to figure these things out thank you very much)
so many small gestures & individual words & moments of frustration make sense now.
i get it.
i don't know what i'm supposed to do with this?
but i'm pretty sure you don't know that you just showed me your entire hand.
she doesn't either.
-at least one of us is oblivious-
it kills me & i have to look at my hands to avoid your eyes as they soften at the edges, taking her pain deep into your heart. i don't know how you do it. to love someone who seems so oblivious and impossible to be with from a distance is one thing. that's a fantasy, an infatuation; it's fed by imagination and not flesh and blood. it's not the kind of slow burn that has depth in reality.
how strong you must be. of course. it's never the humans who look tough or talk tough. it's the quiet steady ones. like you.
it must take a hero's effort to live as you are. to love someone up close, to know them, to absorb their flaws & reflect the beauty they don't know they have back at them... and not ever be allowed to express all of your heart.
she finished her story. you're responding with a neutrality that confirms all that i just saw. and everything slips at once back into what it was before. externally, but i will not forget.
but i can see your face.
so i am lost somewhere in one of my universes.
the one i hate the most,
where puzzle pieces & numbers & fragments of color that i don't recall even seeing, much less taking note of; suddenly collide into a picture. an image i didn't see coming. (how is it that i never see these truth bombs coming until they are fully formed in my mind? who invented this instant connect-the-dots processor? can i return it for a refund? i'd rather realize things slowly or not at all. the human mind needs time to figure these things out thank you very much)
so many small gestures & individual words & moments of frustration make sense now.
i get it.
i don't know what i'm supposed to do with this?
but i'm pretty sure you don't know that you just showed me your entire hand.
she doesn't either.
-at least one of us is oblivious-
it kills me & i have to look at my hands to avoid your eyes as they soften at the edges, taking her pain deep into your heart. i don't know how you do it. to love someone who seems so oblivious and impossible to be with from a distance is one thing. that's a fantasy, an infatuation; it's fed by imagination and not flesh and blood. it's not the kind of slow burn that has depth in reality.
how strong you must be. of course. it's never the humans who look tough or talk tough. it's the quiet steady ones. like you.
it must take a hero's effort to live as you are. to love someone up close, to know them, to absorb their flaws & reflect the beauty they don't know they have back at them... and not ever be allowed to express all of your heart.
she finished her story. you're responding with a neutrality that confirms all that i just saw. and everything slips at once back into what it was before. externally, but i will not forget.
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