I didn’t know I liked you when I saw you.
I didn’t know I liked you when you smiled at me either.
Honestly, I don’t know when looking at you made my heart rate slow down.
I don’t remember the first time you made my knees buckle.

I study you, sometimes.
As much as I can from a distance.
I learned the way your head touches the low ceiling when you stand up.
And how you neck cranes just slightly to the side, because obviously.
I have learned how the back of your neck looks when you’re worried.
But also when you’re thinking hard.  
And also when you’re laughing.

Sometimes I think I am making you up in my head.
I wonder if there is a dissonance between reality and fantasy,
But you won’t let me find out.

I want to hold your hand in the dark without anyone knowing.
I want to take you home to tell you what my day was like.
To have a meal with you. To sit across me on my bed.
Or to have my head in your lap.

I want to know what your day was like.
I want to know what bothers you when your head is on the table in a meeting.
I want to know what you have for lunch. And I want to know if you like eating your meals alone.
I imagine us as two separate minds silently chewing our meals in silence, crying as we watch our favourite shows. Alone, but together.

I want to know if you want me to know all the things I want to know about.

I want to find that sweet spot in your chest that I fit into when we watch something together.
I want to spend the night after that discussing the show in intense detail and end our stories with a kiss.
I want to share you in secret, and get to know you better.
But, you won’t let me.

I never want to say “What if”
So I’ll start with the “Why not”
Why not hold your hand under the table?
Why not find out what keeps you up at 3 am?
Why not find out what song makes you cry?
Why not find out what you don’t like on your pizza?
Why not find every corner of your body to tickle?
Why not let you hold my face when you kiss me?
Why not?

I keep thinking of the 4,000 ways to say these things to you
And 3,999 of them are just versions of “allow me”.
Allow me to knock on a door that’s shut.
Allow me to at least politely stand by as I ask for
A glass of wine, a laugh, a moment, a hand to hold.

There are oceans in my body,
In your eyes,
And between us.

I have walked on water before and drowned.
My holy arms and legs said names and wrapped men as presents that they didn't deserve to be.

I am prone to wishful thinking
And my rapidly closing eyes
Are already building sandcastles.

Tear them down.
Tear them down.
Like you wore and tore me down.

Set me on fire and end me.
Nothing and too much are two extremes I have lived in.
Now bridge them and let me die.

What if we said that we didn't have to fall to our knees to get our way?

What if we said that we didn't have to bend ourselves backwards for anyone but our own dreams? Or maybe not even then?

What if we could sprout wings and fly to anywhere we wanted to without asking for permission?

What if I could decide my own fate, my own destiny, my own consequences, my own future, my own life, my own world and never have to worry what they whispered about us?

I'm clutching at straws
I'm hanging off ledges,
Parkouring my way down.

They were lying about the spirals.
I'm free-falling
In directions I didn't know existed.

There's my limb
And there goes my mind.

But my eyes are shut.
My faith is blind.

And I'm losing touch with home base.
Auto pilot, I run no vehicle.
Just crash and burn.

Is this real?
Is this just in my head?
Why am I only listening to the voices in my head?
I am not in a dark place.
The room in my head is well-lit and well-connected to the every fiber of my being
Where every thought becomes pain in my body.

I watch myself bleed till I'm grey but covered in shades of red.
I count the shades to imagine a rainbow of all the bloodstains.
The riot of colours match the riot of voices inside my head
Till they both consume me.

I'm not sinking.
I'll never sink.
But, I'll keep falling.