I wonder what it would be like to love you.

I don't think that it would be uncomfortable or forced, rather I believe that it would be revitalizing-like having finally found a glass of water after being thirsty for hours.

You once told me that in the night when you can't sleep that you put on gym shorts and walk around the streets contemplating the world. I laughed at first until I realized that I do the same thing from my bedroom, watching the light from car headlights drift in through my black curtains.

I wonder what it would be like to join you out in the brisk night, where I would reach out and grab your hand unashamed and we would just coexist together.

But sadly I am not one to dive into things head first, as I always fear the consequences of allowing others the peel back the layers of my mind.

I am scared of being destroyed by someone as human as you.

You only know what I want you to know,
as the fondness I feel for you is carefully hidden,
in the dark, small chambers of my heart.
Perhaps I have smothered my affections too much,
as you do not know how much I truly and utterly
need you in my life.

I put up a good mask, because it is easier to be someone else
than deal with the pains in my own life.
I have never allowed myself to lower my façade,
because I do not even know who I am without it.

Underneath-

I am lonely.
I am afraid.
I am needy.

I am scared of losing you.

You-

are my warmth.
are the sparkle in my eye.
are the sighs that coat my lips.

You and I will never be.

Because I am a coward.
A coward who is scared to love you.

The pieces of your time with me,
are scattered all around this cluttered room.
And now that we are distant, I somehow am unable to discover
what belonged to you
and what belongs to me.

I never thought that I would ever feel this way.
Hearing the beating of your heart as
we sit and watch movies in the dark
on a late Thursday night.

I miss the way that you looked at me.
I miss the way that your crooked smile seemed to
shine a glimmer of happiness on my face
as we would skip together down the hallway
hand and hand.

Today I woke up, and I realized
that while I thought that we had this "undying" love,
that all I really had all along,
was the closing of a book of fairy tales.
The prince decided that he was tried of trying,
and the princess did not even care.

Everything is gone.
And so am I.

She wonders who she really is.

To her parents, she is the "reliable child",
while her brother was off doing bath salts and fighting the "greater enemy",
she was at home reading books and tending to their every beckoning need,
with a smile plastered to her nimble face,
causing her features to slowly turn into a mask of perfection,
only to hide her yearning to escape,
and to taste the alcohol under the kitchen counter.

To her husband, she is the woman of his dreams,
with a graceful charm and a impeccable body,
she is the angle that awoke him from his long eternal slumber of loneliness,
and the one that is the biggest supporter of his dreams.
He never wonders if she does not love him as much as her loves her,
but the scrabble of her footsteps leaving the bedroom every-night,
are starting to weigh on his thought process.

To her work, she is the most valuable member of the team,
the one who always has the files organized by client last name in alphabetical order,
who can rattle off statistics and coffee orders as if they were the facts she learned in grade school,
and who always gives the best toasts at the yearly Christmas office party,
dressed perfectly with the smile frozen onto her face.
Little do they know, she has panic attacks in the bathroom between conference calls.

What astonishes me the most is when she needs a person to help her,
how all the people in her vicinity abruptly vanish,
and how she is able to blend in with the dark walls and floors,
and be completely out of sight.

She is the chameleon.

I had pictured that I would be strong enough to leave without remorse,
as I had to "challenge my prospects of life",
like everyone would say,
I needed to smoke out who I really was,
and not find myself crawling back to you,
but it was after I had packed up my life into small obsolete card-board boxes,
that I realized how trivial and small I really was.

I felt so alone.

I longed to feel the familiar shape of your body pressed up against mine,
to wake to your bright hazel eyes,
to the smell of your mango shampoo engolfing my senses,
to hear your breath harmonize with mine,
and to intertwine our legs into a maze that neither of us could escape from.

I missed you.

But you disconnected from me,
and when I rolled towards the middle of the bed,
and found it empty and alone,
experiencing for the first time that the receptivity of our hearts had grown apart,
like the un-uniformity of a puppeteer getting tired of old dolls,
and cutting the strings of the marionette,
at the perfect spot,
in order for me to feel the pain and deceptively obvious sadness,
of not wanting you to leave.

With you gone, I feel as though my world stopped.
Cliché as how I always thought that I would be the one to leave you,
but I was wrong.

I had hoped that you loved me,
and that that distant gleam I would see in your eyes,
was just you daydreaming about a world,
where you would not be able to hold your hand in mine.

I had hoped that one day I could take you home,
taking the three hour drive in your broken maroon car,
and have my parents beam with the fact that I had found someone,
with my brother murmuring under his breath,
that you looked "homeless" because your gorgeous long locks and band shirts,
that I suppose did not appear to appease him.
We would laugh about it later.

I had hoped that even though I knew all these things,
that at least you would care about my attached feelings,
and that you would not toss them away to the sharks,
in order to dance another dance with another girl,
someone prettier and who can tell better jokes,
who can make you smile and someone who completes the part of you,
that I guess I was never able to fill,
who you hoped would envelope the empty whole,
in your heart.

I wonder what it is like to been seen.

To be a regular at a coffee cafe,
where all the baristas know your order,
and they always have your grande nonfat extra shot white mocha ready for you,
with your name written on it in scratchy calligraphy,
when you walk through the door at 8:44 in the morning.

To be a drop dead beauty queen,
to walk down the street in the middle of the day,
with perfect hair and a dazzling smile,
and to have everyone turn to look at you as you go,
and to say "Wow, she sure is something special".

To be someone's everything,
who knows all of your little secerts and special quirks,
who can cheer you up with a stupid joke or a sappy love song,
someone your parents would approve of,
someone to love you till the day you die,
to have them look at you and breathe out a sigh,
and wonder how they ever lived a day with your body laying next to theirs.

I simply wonder what it is like to be anything at all.