Before -
I feel like I'm falling for you. I'm not in love yet.
I have a hangover. Maybe I'm just too emotional today.
Maybe I'll fall for your ideas. Anyway, I barely know you. It's only been a few months, and while 3-4 months is definitely the scientific average - no. I don't have "romantic" feelings for people. Statistically, I probably won't. Not for me, you know? But something is messing with my neurochemistry. And it could be your pheromones and unconscious evolutionist, and I'm having a hard time caring.
I couldn't even list the reasons I like you.
That's a lie. Of course I can.
The blue eyes that never judge and the veins popping out of your forearms, the way you seem always surprised when you laugh and the visceral feeling in my gut when you sing (especially when you surprise me with Taylor Swift) and the way you actually listen when I talk.
But it can't be this. Not now. This is a warm warmth around my lungs. This is a hornet on my shoulder blade. And it doesn't sound like something easily diagnosable. So I can't be sure what this is. It could be early signs of a stroke.
Besides, if I fall for you, which part of my brain would light up on an MRI? I mean, you might not feel the same because it's hard to read you, and I'm not used to it, so it's becoming one of my favorite things.
So how long until this is over? Until the girl who crashed into orbit on a summer evening gets bored, begging for quick, life-saving favors… didn't you leave? The girl with constantly icy fingers and dark circles under her eyes waits for her skin to bleed and her stupid bones to break, so she always tries too hard to hold onto her needle. Do you somehow have the patience to coax you like you're a lion in a fable and somehow it works?
I think you have the power to hurt me. Badly.
I'm not falling in love. I can't. But I think I can see it on the horizon. The evidence might be that this is a two-way street, but hoping is always a foolish thing. Until the other person truly says the obvious. You can somehow believe it.
But.
But you kissed me in the curse of a stranger after we left your friend's party. That night I was so dressed up. 'D had been waiting to do that, and maybe it was just a line, but maybe you knew that when you waited with me, it helped me hold on until I found my feet (or until I went blind). Something and still you keep coming back.
I'm scared. But I won't run away. Not yet.
No, the fact that I'm scared is a feeling like a type of physical response invented by someone? I can't do this. I'm still too vivid to let my defenses down all the way. To completely put my "everything is perfectly, 100% okay" persona in place.
No. Stop. No. It doesn't work. Not yet. Not today. When I don't recognize this, this isn't a thing that can put nouns in. Why do I not like jumping off a cliff into the unknown?
Doesn't that tend to get me in trouble?
You are all kinds of unknown. And I'm fascinated.
Come together.
After all, when did the little alarm bell in my head stop me? I feel like I'm going to fall, please, please, let my hand go because I like bad thoughts.
After?
I hope I didn't give up the chance of a fairy tale. Maybe we could have actually had one. This era. Somehow. I'm still curious about you, hating myself, telling myself I'm the best, wishing both sides of myself would shut up.
Of course, if I mess them up, they couldn't.
Now I still question whether I can still love. If I can still be loved. If there is someone in this world who can handle this terrible, disgusting, scary (fearful) thing. If someone has a reason to want. Of course, someone who can breathe the same breath used to swallow half a flask of whiskey and accompany the moons of Jupiter, I wonder if someone deserves it. After all, being alone is inappropriate, inappropriate, and not choosing the unlikely possibility, I wonder if my delusion is because of that. Well, at least being alone is safe.
But.
We both had a hard time staying alone. And this time are we really done? I mean, I still haven't assured you how glorious your smile is. Before we end, if this time is the end, I have to let go all the way before the world messes us up for good, at least I have to. At least I should try.
And of course (our pair is still dancing to the movement of magnets, but I don't know which is which), you allow me.
After.
This time it really fell apart.
I think I will finally ask you why you kept coming back to the sound I made that was a little smaller than the scared prey from the beginning. Then in the middle when I didn't know what I wanted; and later, when I didn't know how to trust you - why did you keep coming back?
You don't give me an answer.
But this time this time is older. I know well enough what it means because you always tell me the truth, even if it's bad, when you struggle to communicate. I know you are not looking for indifferent words. I know that. So why are you afraid to admit that you fell for me now?
And God, why does your hesitation inspire the smallest, most terrible amount of trace?
…again?
Are you also in the mood for bad thoughts?