I'm Sad I Never Got To Love You
We were on our first date. I told you I was tired of talking about myself, I wanted to know something about you. I rapid fired three questions, like it was a job interview, or getting to know you 101. I remember your answer to one question. You said your favorite color was green, like your eyes. I found it heart breaking how someone vain could be so insecure. That the confidence in your stride lied so blatantly. I remember all the times you told me you felt ugly more deeply than the times you said you were "feeling yourself". How your fingers in my mouth made you feel like you were disgusting to me when you were the most intoxicating person I'd met in years. I liked you better than almost anyone I'd ever let touch me. I liked how my tongue felt in your mouth while we were kissing; an intimacy I don't remember sharing with anyone but you in over a decade. I wish I could have told you that, but it felt a little like a guy giving a high five after sex.
I wanted to know, what happpend to you, who shattered you? Why did it seem so much deeper than the things I knew hurt you? Maybe I was projecting or maybe, like always, there was more to you than you showed.
I wondered how someone could look at anyone else in the room, when you were right there, so damn beautiful, so interesting. With your long hairs that fell into your eyes, I loved brushing it back, touching the soft parts of your cheeks, listening to you when it felt like you were speaking to a room full of zombies. I liked the dusting of freckles on your prominent nose , the long lashes, the femine curve of your lower lip, the apples of your cheeks.
I tried my best to hold space for you, welcome your emotional intensity when others seemed to fear it. I didn't want you to dumb yourself down, I liked how you seemed like the smartest one in the room. How you might have seemed cold and calculating to others at times but I saw the way you noticed everything, digested everyone's words, looked for meaning and context clues even when they weren't there. Why did you listen so hard , was it was because you knew what it felt like to be ignored? How could someone chose another person over you?
But maybe the answer was simple, you didn’t want to be known. The exoskelton kept your softness protected, but it kept the rest of us at a distance, your shell I didn't want to crack kept you sheltered from life's cruelty. But it didn't, it made you isolated. You were constantly searching for connection but retreating when it was offered.
You said you were private, you didn't like to be spoken about. I tried to respect that , but I wonder , what made you want to get close to a writer when you've closely studied how open and emotinally vulnerable I am with the world for so long? Did part of you want to be imortalized in my words and seen by the public in such a brazen way? I hurt you anyways...
And I break people, don't I? Words that were shouted at me so many times, from so many different mouths, but you never shouted at me. In turn I treated you like you were labled "fragile, handle with care". But it didn't fix anything. You pushed away and I let you walk, because I thought it was best for both of us. I WANTED to protect that softness. But I wanted to truly know you, those ugly untocuhed parts you keep hidden that only make a person more beautiful to me.
