I
wish I could tell you…everything. Open up as you asked me to. Be the person you
saw and appreciated me for.
But
what do I even say?
Perhaps
this and this alone… I’m not whom you’re looking for.
I
have walked into a conflict of my own volition – and you stand there, waiting
for my answer, believing in your convictions to persuade me to see the light,
to take the step.
“But
I don’t know you
…and
I wish I did.”
Strike
a chord within my heart. Don’t leave me cold. Make me care. Make me love you.
I’m
tired of relating to people out of a sense of duty or obligation. Make me want
to seek you out, for no other reason than to be with you. Make me crave your
presence, feel alive in your company.
Make me
leave the realm of my mind and feel what I’d been so good at imagining so far.
Make me see myself for who I am.
But
that’s too much to ask, isn’t it?
So
leave me to pick up the pieces of my unrealized dreams, weave them into a veil,
and lie beneath it, forgotten to the world.
No
trail shall be left and yet there will always be signs that would lead you to
me. Make me wish, fervently, that you will heed them and come for me.
You
will bring me back, won’t you?
I
would tear down the walls, but I won’t. I can’t.
The quiet
darkness, the sedate comfort of a narrow sphere, painstakingly built with
everything I knew of with certainty.
There
isn’t much to go on with, in there. Make me yearn for more, to live in the
thrill than in that deadening refuge.
…
“But you saw me for who I really was…or did
you?”
“I see you for who you are. Nothing more,
nothing less.”
“…and you should know, that adds all the
value you could possibly want.”
“But I didn’t want any.”
They met. By the riverside, with the day
dying upon them and the cool breath of night starting to blow. Water always
calmed her, she said, but nothing compared to the ocean and its freeing effect.
But this would have to do, she mused.
For all the things that we could have
done together, it will have to do.
And
you think I didn’t want the same, he thought,
looking at her quietly as she gazed back at him in equal solemnity.
She looked away, almost smiling to herself,
“We both did.”
“Yes. But you wouldn’t let me.”
She turned to face him again, leaning in to
wrap her arms around his neck. “Because if I did, it’s still not what either of
us is looking for.”
“And I’d kiss you, like before, but it
would…”
“Be my guest.”
He settled for cupping her face, drawing
her closer. “It won’t be enough of a claim, will it now?
She smiled rakishly. “Not in a million
years.”
And yet she stood before him, willingly in
his hold, endless thoughts skimming before her closed eyes as she waited for
one to strike her mind, pierce her heart…perhaps, perhaps succinctly pinpoint
the myriad of feelings he managed to evoke in her. Then again, it wasn’t him
per se – it was the idea he represented, the idea she had chased blindly for as
long as she could remember.
Isn’t it said, one falls more in love with
the idea of falling in love rather than with someone?
She looked at him again, taking in his
presence, drawing comfort from the familiarity of his being…and yet, perhaps it
does takes more than mere affection to set a heart racing. She wondered what it
was and whether she would ever find it.
