A fair fight, a sentence to death. In the center of a sniper’s sight, I miss you already. An apparently humorless man, but still I saw you, when you turned away, smiling at the way I stood there with the wet on my hands. Later, in bed, I wonder if I make you proud. Shocked, to want that, for the first time, when even my progenitor’s pride horrified me. No one’s fault. Just a stain I could never parse. Parallax of the heart. Forever a side-sleeper, and I turn away, towards the wall. Inkblot on my upper arm, misread by an army of therapists.
Getting a spam email and thinking, no way, I’m still in her address book? Yes, way. Wayfinding into heaven and finding myself just as lonely there. Peachy, plummy skies turned to a carpet of frothing stars. Looking up: how to say “I wish you could see yourself how I see you” in Japanese. Looking up to see the planet directly opposite my front door. Seize this now, this sparkling deepness in time. I’d let you kiss my hand if you wanted. And that’s not all.
Out of the blue, out of the amber. How many people who knew me for only a brief time still remember me, years later? Hear my name and know it as my name, and not just a mess of phonemes most popular among depressed parents of girls? Recognize, in the milling of the crowd, the habits that I don’t and never did, because they show up in motion and not in the mirror? See my eyes in the pockmarks of the bark? Look at a tone, crushed crystal on the stand, and then recall the tremble and slant of my hands? The way I smiled when I thought, incorrectly, that I’d managed to conceal the obvious?
And when they see the pockmarks, the eyes, the hands, the name, what then? And when they send the email, how many deep breaths? On your marks. On your guard. I’ve been told that I am dangerous, that I am strong, that I am cold. And that’s not all. So when you recognize, in the staggering of the clouds, the signs of my predator’s drive, do you rush to hide your herd?
You say it twice because you think I didn’t hear you, but I did. My instinct to deflect your compliments is as strong as pain. I think I might sooner take a bullet than praise. So shy, but I don’t want to be boring. Plan the murder of your inner child. Life comes back anyway. It always does. Quiet, my show is on. I break open a door and confront my stalker. I yell at him to explain his fascination with me, in the frame of the open doorway, this girl broken out of the wooden horse, and he is sat in a desk chair by a dark window, not as hideous as I wanted, briefly speechless.
Draw your own conclusion. Fine by me. I can’t control how I’m perceived. Die in your own dream and leave me to mine. No, wait.
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