it's easier to smile when you only exist in the tangles of my imagination
a confused blur of soft gazes and upturned lips and low voices mixed with
a laugh laced with alcohol and glassy eyes that glaze over my face.
in my head my thoughts maliciously fill in the blanks i could never figure out
tangled limbs and heady smells of perfume and glances setting off an explosion of butterflies in someone else's stomach
and i look on with impassive eyes waiting for your desire for a different kind of thrill to punch me in mine;
like a man faint from thirst i down cocktails of expectations filled with silky whispers or shy gazes into other eyes
waiting for the rush of crippling emptiness to pull me under
and it's either that i don't know how to mix drinks or i'm too afraid try something stronger
but its potency is next to that of water
and so i walk around half-drowned in a strange mix of grief and apathy
looking for your eyes in a crowd of thousands while trying not to look -
losers are the ones who care too much in a game of take then go
and i'm always losing because the irony is that i have to care to pretend that i don't.
i comfort myself by trying to force you into the shoes of a narcissistic trophy collector;
your medals are the company you keep and i guess you've set your eyes on gold statues sparkling with far more brilliance than me
but i'd be the villain if i saw you as one
because i've kept the polaroids i took in the moments in which you pulled back to help me out of the dust
when you shelved away your own inhibitions to guide me out of the dark path i was walking
and swallowed back your emotions to place mine ahead of your own.
i hope you know that i've set fire to myself in the moments when i wanted to choke the night sky with the ashes of the memories you've left me
i would love to immerse myself in the past to escape the bitterness of this present
but i'm not so disillusioned that i'd let go of what i've tried so hard to build to get me to where i am
and all i hope is that one day i won't have to pretend that i don't care about your presence in the same room as mine
that smiling at you would be as easy as it used to be.