i tried with you

I. You didn’t expect to laugh at her jokes that she said with her air of nonchalance, you didn’t expect to look forward to seeing her everyday. You didn’t expect your heart to warm and shift from blue to yellow when she half smiled and looked down. You didn’t expect to hang on to each word she said as if her voice was dry land and you were drowning in the way she spoke- full of some unspoken intellectual ferocity that fueled and stirred you all at once. You certainly didn’t expect to fall in love with her- the sparkle in her eyes when she gazed at the sky or the way she would push her hair out of her face for it to only fall back into her eyes. You didn’t expect to become a slave to her laugh, the way she would cover her radiant smile in a display of maddening modesty. You didn’t expect to miss her whenever she was away. You didn’t expect her to become a part of you. II. You didn’t expect her to be dangerous. You didn’t expect her to leave you when all you wished for was her by your side and you never thought she was cruel enough to turn the “I love you” that blazed in your mouth into bitter ashes. You didn’t expect her to hold your hand only to break your wrists or hold you close only to break your heart. You didn’t expect her to draw blood. You didn’t expect to bleed to what felt like death. III. You didn’t expect her to stay after she left. You didn’t expect your heart to lurch when you saw a book that made her eyes glow with passion and lips to part in a smile that bespoke excitement. You didn’t expect her name to taste so torturously like her kisses so you couldn’t pronounce the name that defined your heartbreak. You didn’t expect to think of her when you crossed the streets you once walked together and you didn’t expect to chase her even during your sleep, begging her to return to you. You didn’t expect to tremble with longing when you realized she wasn’t beside you and she never would be again. You didn’t expect her to leave such catastrophic shards of emotion in her wake, like a hurricane that shows no mercy.