She was painstakingly too aware then of the stinging pain
that rejection brought, she was all too aware
Of the gorgeous blonde gossiping about her to him,
she was aware of how she was blaming him,
saying it was all his fault because
he always attracted female attention,
she was aware of his soft murmurs to not get upset,
she was aware of the silent i love you's he told her
with the caress of her cheek,
she was all too aware of his eyes then,
the silent apology they gave for her and she was also aware
of the pity behind them too, the look of wanting to
feel something for her and feeling terrible because he couldn't
She was aware of all of this, so she put on a shy smile
and her always useful mask of I'm fine, it's okay
and with that look given she walked out of the restaurant,
tears already slipping, her composure now a mess
and she slid her back down the wall of the alley nearby
and let it all out, she cried then because
the boy she loved was an artist, and she knew
that he would appreciate everything about
the hour glass blonde the way he would never appreciate
the twig like brunette she was and she also knew,
in her heart that he would be kind about everything,
about the whole thing and that tomorrow in art class
when she told about a boy named Elliot that
she met on the way home, he would pretend it was true
because he was kind and wonderful and patient and
everything she wasn't, he was the opposite of her,
and that she supposed was the very reason
that they could never be together,
because he was an artist and his job was to
create catastrophe on a canvas and have others marvel,
his job was not to fix disasters like her in real life,
that was the job of fiction stories because
in real life he would try, until the end of his days,
to paint happiness unto her with vibrant reds and cool blues
but she could not be fixed and that was the thing
that he would probably never understand
which was precisely why they had to stay away,
he had an aura of happiness that made others
want to live and being with her would break him
which was why she figured he painted curvy blondes
instead of skinny brunettes and it would have to stay that way,
because she was oil and he was water,
and being with her would strike such a fire in his heart
that would only be capable of leaving embers of ashes
so that is why she would walk to bus stop that day,
with a heaviness in her heart, but also an understanding,
an understanding of why disastrous girls like her
could not love happy artists like him,
for the sun and the moon would
destroy earth if they ever loved each other

(h.l.)