Chëlle

There’s a fictional place where I drive to in the middle of the night. After an hour on a long winding road, I park my car into a gated port, step out and tip toe my way to the porch. I ring the door bell and I am met with a smile and an exasperated “I am so happy to see you”.

They let me inside and ask if I would like some water. “Yes”, I reply. I am parched. This drive had me salivating at the idea of what was to come. 

In my awake life, I do not experience these greetings. In an opposite way, I am met with divided attention and eyes that wander away from mine.

If I had been given just an afternoon of pillow talk and secret coffee table glances, it might have hurt a little less. Like shards of glass stuck in frozen heels instead of shattered wall length mirrors. It was all bad luck and another seven years is of no fault but my own.

We had only known fearful and cautious tiptoeing. All of it to avoid waves of anger which looked nothing like the sun kissed kind that these beautifully fearless strangers felt against their skin.

My memories of you are fading like the red of your forgotten fabric. They got lost in the back of the closet I share with my never-would-have-been-if-you-didn’t-leave person.

My adolescence was spent holding hands with negativity and it felt good. Like salt in wounds and paper-cuts. It felt safe. No one could invade your heart to cause damage if you never invited them in.

It could be easily assumed that I haven’t experienced loss, struggle or suffering based on my outlook. I get that. But I have. I really have. I carry them with me every day. Whether they sit in my mind, my memory or my shoulders metaphorically, they’re there and they never go away. And I’m a better person for them. A constant aching reminder of how different I used to be.

I’m an open book but only slightly. You can see numbers on the pages and how each is full of words, but you can never decode the messages hidden within each line. There’s more to me than most care to read. But still, I remain satisfied in knowing people continue to try.

Programmed by nature to pull and break our own branches so nothing else could get to it first. We limit our own growth to water the ego of others and they flourish because of it.

When my eyes are closed, your smile stays stuck to my subconscious like an etch a sketch I keep trying to shake off.

I question if there’s a deeper meaning behind the link in our capacity and intensity of memory. Maybe I’m thinking too much. Overthinking is a habit that has cost me more than what I’ve ever had to begin with.

All my life, I have been here. Just here. Simple and complex as that.  Second choice. Consolation prize. Sexual acquaintance. Afterthought. FriendZone.

No need for the reminder. Although you did. It was dark and it was filled with noise and you made my head spin, which I blamed on the alcohol in my glass. 

Years and years later, and I find myself back there. Hoping and praying for a hug on my doorstep to satisfy my need to feel attended to; wanted; loved. But even with my front door unlocked, there is no one there to offer me what I’m not even asking for.

I feel betrayed. Betrayed by imaginary scenarios I create my damn self. 

I am simply me, stepping from one day into the next with not so much as a clue about how each new day is going to go.  There are so many inconsistencies that I stopped questioning them.  But you know what remains fixed, without the slightest sway into uncertainty?

You. 

My heart knows all kinds of love. I am learning new ways to care about others. Attraction’s conception comes more from my soul than it does from my eyes so it leaves me feeling this intensity that never really goes away. Because even when I’m sleeping, I can still feel it.

I fear so many things in my life. I'm squinting to see the past but I can still make out the silhouettes whose shadows took away my light. So I fear it coming back and finding their way into this. This being a love I used to dream about that I now know I am worthy of; that I was always worthy of.

However, I am most glad that I was worthy of you. 

Whether it be because of cosmic fate, serendipity or the master plan of God Himself, I know that what we have is intended and one of my most beloved masterpieces.