My, oh My, oh My

If only you were in the midst of my mind where I keep you alive because I need you around. You wouldn’t be talking about ‘things moving too fast in life’, then. 

I wanted to draw a picture of you and I couldn’t. Perhaps it was the thought that I had your image perfected inside my head and ready to replicate would have you admire me more; as though you didn’t admire me enough without me having to do that. 

But then, what do I admire you for? 

It’s not something that I’m not aware of and yet can’t explain. It’s the voice in my head that sounds like David Gray when he goes: 

“There’s something in your eyes 

That makes me smile... 

Oh, yeah.” 

There IS something in your eyes that makes me smile. Like I saw the glitter on the cover of those Pokemon cards I was caught stealing and got slapped for in seventh Class. In them, I find my desire to be a better person. In agitation to be more mellow. More nostalgic, more beautiful, more insightful, more fun; more of ‘me’ than I could ever be and I still want to go further. As if better versions of myself are all that you asked for. 

And that is because I don’t know what you want. 

This is my most fragmented narrative of all and I find it in order; in adherence to my mind’s sequence, a place where I’ve got it all mapped out – a plan so frantic whose potency I can’t keep pace with. A place where I get lost often; where the last I remember is holding your hand as you left me by the street on my way back home. Two kilometres in a head filled with you, in street-art, in car-headlights and the eyes of an occasional dog that I had to fight to avoid; that so terrifies me. In the most hazardous of times, most comforted. 

“If only life were like ‘Before Sunrise’,” I told you, if you remember. “I would kiss you on a roller-coaster with the sun in your eyes.” 

I couldn’t say the second part to you and have you scandalized. 

Why is it that I can never like someone and feel comfortable standing? What is it about attraction that it’s got to be so discomforting, compulsively, putting me in a whirlwind that sends me spinning to an Oz of my own where they’ve put up posters of you, your smile in red, your face in yellow and your eyes in sunset orange, lined by scanty kajal that you never knew how to put. Like you were the proud drawing of my six-year old self that I called ‘Dollie’ and showed my parents with a naughty little smile on my face. 

Where your hair was green and your retainer blue, for I only had a six-colour box where I had used up everything else. And I found you beautiful like that. 

If only you heard the things I said to those I complained about you. You’re the stomach ache that has me starve – to eat would mean to replace you for that’s where you reside, soothing against the acid; tickling me from within. We tried my heart where you were cramped for space. I suggested we move you elsewhere. And I suffer from my suggestion, only too sweetly. 

I’m clearer now. It’s like I’ve woken up from waters that you pushed me into, off my bed as I rolled over the side and lay sprawled on the floor; drenched, but never cold. I sleep without air-conditioning. I don’t remember if I’ve told you this before. 

I’ve found I can’t write when I’ve lost track of myself in my scramble for space and time (with you); I had to turn some pages to get familiar so I could write these things that I thought about you. And I had my hand on my mouth with a smile on my face and my head shaking in disbelief as I read these lines that I once wrote in a distant-sounding song. I had called it ‘Shame.’ 

“...and we’ll make love on sunset-streams, 

Splashing in the sand...” 

I was outraged; embarrassed that I had written/thought something like this before. Like I could pull my shirt over my head so no one can see my face turn red.

Look at how little you’ve made me.