*What if this is me, losing my love?
What if this is my love being taken from me, kidnapped and ransomed and I don't have enough energy in my body to pay up?*
Saturdays were her favorite. She'd watch cartoons in the morning and play with paper dolls in the afternoon. She made sure all the paper dolls had another doll to love them, a perfect match of brown eyes, cute smiles, light hair.
Where have you gone? I barely recognize you anymore. How can I make you look new if all you ever do is sit in the corner like an old doll? You're fragile, you're breakable. I don't like what you've become and quite frankly, you're scaring me. Stay over there, don't come close. Tell me why your eyes are glazed over like that, tell me why your hair is coming out in patches and why your full pink smile has turned into a thin white line. You were my best friend, you were my sister, you were my little Kelly.
Sometimes she would watch the people that walked by. She would choose names for each person and pick one individual out, imagining what their reaction would be to her saying, "I love you, will you run away with me?"
Come back, please. When you started fading I thought it was because you had been in the sun too long, I thought it was because you hadn't had any food in some time. Our tea parties became rare occurrences and you were always sleeping. Come back, little Kelly.
One day she woke up with an energy made of something she couldn't measure. Not joules, not electron volts, not anything she could quantize. It wasn't the caffeine and it wasn't the 7 hours of sleep the night prior. She woke up in love.
I've been trying to sell our house for two and a half years and it just won't sell. You're poisoning this house, my old friend. You need to leave, you need to be buried in the backyard, with the puppy we adopted and the bunny I hit with the truck when I was 17. You need to get out of my house now. We're both much too old to play together, and you never seemed to understand that I had to move on.
Her trouble was that she woke up in love with one stranger too many. She's lied so many times that she doesn't trust herself anymore. Make her decisions for her, she's not a fit mother to these poisonous ideas she is fostering in her head. Don't allow her to choose her future.
Kelly, don't you see, I don't love you the way I used to. Kelly, you need to go. A family is stopping by this afternoon to take a tour of the house and you need to be swept out of the attic by then. Pack your things. Take your cracked glasses and your grey shoes. I'm too old to be a part of your family now.
--
She sees a hint of what she fell in love with. His eyes are downcast, his fingers strumming and thrumming her love songs without words, his mouth twitching with thoughts he can't seem to string into sentences. He is a beautiful child again.
Sing me songs even chickadees don't know, strum me the most beautiful lullaby. Take a picture of this moment- bottle it.
She loves the hint of a smile when he catches her staring at his lips instead of the neck of his guitar, when he realizes she is in maddening, chaotic love.
And some days you're just a friend. I see you leaking from your life, straight out of your backyard. And sometimes you mean nothing. I see you standing alone on your deck, sitting on your cement paradise like it's your imaginary god. Keep yourself in check. You won't be getting any more kisses tonight, I can't – I can't let you be the one to make up my mind.
She can barely remember the days of being alone, of being unable to tell anyone about her scars shrouding her hips and her head that hung heavy.
*Today was a fever, a fog of anger. I want to make you hate me, I want you to leave. Save your lies and excuses for someone else, I don't want to hear them. I hope the fog can creep in my ears and into my brain. I want it to make me forget everything about you. I'm sure I'd be happier. Maybe if the fog can erase my memories, I can finally stop crying. Maybe I can stop trying to prove I want to die. Let me **** myself, let me go. You're smoke in the wind and you're fading with every breath I take.*
Sophomore year of high school was the most difficult time of her life. Fortunately for her, she met you that winter. You made her smile, you made her laugh. She found a boy whose blue eyes and long brown hair complimented her own. Her paper doll dream come true, you loved her as she was.
You are smog. Your face is no longer a child of summer, your hair has gotten long and tangled. Your eyes are clouded, and you are fading, slipping from my fingers. As your soul dies in my arms, as I try to save you, you steal my breath, grab at my lungs, take what is keeping me alive. What is there to fix, and can it be put back together again? L-o-v-e is only four letters long, but then again, so is your name, and god knows that doesn't mean anything to me anymore.
--
His back was straight and his stomach was soft. The hollow of his collar bone and hip bone spelled her name in 12 point font kisses. Her breath came out in gasps and he shivered from the thought of being able to coax such unfamiliar passion from her lips.
You are the night. You are the wind in my dreams and the birds in my hair. Lift me higher, I want no control. I want to see the tops of buildings above the low level clouds; the spires piercing the sky like needles piercing my flesh.
The feeling doesn't wear away. Days have passed and they still long for each other. Their bodies feel the urge to be near, to be touching.
Let us set sail on the tunes of summer, of air conditioners and scratchy radios. Let us sail away from this life.