written for the boy who would never fall in love with me

written in approximately 2000 - unedited

Sitting there was like becoming a statue. I had been warm and I had been leaning into him, feeling our bodies mold against one another. Suddenly I became intensely aware that my entire body was cold. I could feel the warm air, just portions of inches away from my skin, but not able to touch me. My limbs, my head, my eyes were all positioned so definitely and purposefully. I was no longer laying with him, I was as though placed upon him. The cold was intense, but I did not shiver, for it was simply an adjective and not an effect. There was understanding and yet no feeling save his hands. Two hands palm down, laying next to each other, perfectly rounded over my right leg, touching the skin, making me feel as though that were the only part of my body that were alive. And I could feel his eyes drift toward me and stay there. I fixated on the gold of the couch, the blue skirt of the chair. The lights became so obviously bright. There were so many lights on, and yet no-one else was awake, there was no reason for such illumination. Perhaps it came from the conversation, exposing too much. A little too unkind and yet so unintentional, like the light. He was watching me and all I could do was think about furniture. He was telling me his feelings, asking me to feel and all I could do was squint at the choice of lighting. I can not remember breathing. I can picture each fold on the arm of the couch, the stain that runs down into the cushions, the buttons of which some are exposed and some are shockingly hidden... and yet I can not remember how I breathed, or whether I breathed at all. And then it was over. Jarringly so. It was the end and I was leaving and there was no more talking and I was out the door, with my purse, my shoes, my book, my face. And I had watched him while he talked, but I did not look at him so well as I left. For then it was over. It had all played around me, as it always does and then it ends without offering any apologies. And the cold air outside bit my skin and I didn't shake. Not as I walked away with my back towards his eyes. Not when the lights of the apartment shut off as I walked past. Not when I could see him in his bedroom window which I did not look up to. No, not until I was in the car and the door was shut, and the windows, all fogged over, hid me from any possibility of being seen, and then my body was racked with convulsions. I could not stop shaking and my breath was ragged. How strange to want to be a part of someone so much and still show them nothing. Perhaps this time will be different. It is never different. I am not the first, and I will never be the last, either. I am a point in time, an aspect of life, a phase needed to be gone through. But it's still over. The whole world has ended one more time.