cfseitz1998
"There's nothing you can say," he says, looking at me with aching eyes, and I watch them like television screens. I see thirty-five years of unhappiness. Thirty-five years of mundane afternoons and lonely nights. Of under-achievement, unrequited love, anxiety attacks. The vague possibility of contentment that's hovered over his head for so long and teased his fingertips every time he's scraped up the will to reach for it. I see him in all his genuine, raw, untheatrical despair, and I know he's right. There's nothing to say. I put a hand on his shoulder, another on the cap, and, wordlessly, I nod towards the sky. The fading stars. The rising sun. A worthy, temporary distraction from the plastic bottle in his hands. He watches it for a long while, and I watch him, and, at least in that brief time, his hopeless eyes are filled with light.
His fingers tremble slightly as they hover over the keys, and I know it has nothing to do with cold or fear. It's the anticipation. I know it well. I can see the outline of a thousand minuscule gears whir rapidly inside his skull, and watch as his fingertips tap idly at nothing. Practicing with the air. Warming up. Waiting for that buzz of energy to surge to his wrists, to create audible colours with black and white keys, to turn his thoughts into sound and fill the room with them. In this brief preceding silence I swear I can hear how fast his heart is going, and, in this moment, mine matches; I'm just as eager to hear.
She holds him close and lets him leak saltwater into her skin, and the roots of her hair smell like home. Like northwestern air and secondhand cigarette smoke and the dried lavender she keeps in her room to help her sleep. She holds him close, lets him stain her coat with mumbled words and sheepish shame, and the soothing words she whispers into his ears are almost enough to drown the dreadful words inside his head. She holds him close, and she smooths his hair back, and she tells him, "I am so proud of you."
The first thing you notice about her is that she's like something out of a John Hughes movie. Pom pom earrings. Slick leather jackets. Coca Cola patches on acid washed jeans and cartoon characters on tennis shoe laces. Oversized T-shirts. Nintendo. Rush. Back to the Future. MTV on a pastel baseball cap. Political pins on a distressed denim vest. Fingernails every shade of the rainbow, and a personality to match. She makes fireworks look lacklustre.
Halt my heart with those eyes. This feels like a medical condition. You pull the strength from my knees and the air from my lungs. You’re everything Julie Andrews sings about. And maybe someday, if I’m lucky, I’ll find someone who looks at me the way I look at you.
Halt my heart with those eyes. This feels like a medical condition. You pull the strength from my knees and the air from my lungs. You're everything Julie Andrews sings about. And maybe someday, if I'm lucky, I'll find someone who looks at me the way I look at you.
He was always too aware of his own heartbeat. It used to daunt him. Haunt him. But today, his footsteps match the rhythm. His lungs contribute to the symphony. The morning air sings back. Today, his bathwater is clear. His dishes are clean. He enjoys music again, and food, and being awake. He looks both ways before he crosses the street, and he traces shapes in the clouds. He waits patiently for love. He returns every smile. He's finally embraced who he's always been, and, in the process, became someone entirely new.
He can hold his liquor but he can't hold his tongue. Things are going to change, he tells me. Things are going to get better. I'm gonna do big things, man. I'm gonna make a difference. His voice rings out like a song and his smile is sure. But his eyes ache. Eyes so young, while the rest of his body nears its third quarter of a century. And how could I discourage? How could I doubt? When you don't know who you are and you've got nothing to lose, you can be whoever you choose.
Cluttering your thought bubbles. Circling around your head, like cartoon birds. The only thing he's ever forced on you is his jacket. And as each night ends and you wait for your blood to cool, you try to convince yourself that it's just the hormones and afterglow that make you want to tell him you love him.
You, with your zircon eyes. Your tourmaline lips. Your heart of iron. You, with your detrimental existential views. Hard as diamond and twice as sharp. Solid, but softening. Crumbling. You're beginning to crack, and it's because of this that the light might someday shine through you.
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writing since 2017 · 23 entries · 22 days shown up
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