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v u l v a l i c i o u s She switches on and off, back and forth; she is adept at this kind of thing She yo-yo pulls me up and down every day now, and she never notices. Her eyes were nearly closed, and I expected no apologies, and when I saw her this morning I smiled my usual smallmorning smile and moved to get water for tea. It's like that sometimes, and the other voices there were too quiet, and felt private, so I moved to my room, where I couldn't hear anything. But I saw her tonight, and everything was the same again, and she had a look in her eyes that was all empathetic pain, like she had swallowed someone else's misery that day and was chewing it slowly. And we talked, and she had, and the look in her eyes made me feel like I had to say something, though I had nothing to say. There were, I thought, the beginnings of tears. But she doesn't cry, does she? Or maybe she does, even more than me. I wanted to spill out the small pieces of my life on the floor in front of her, but settled for telling her about the things I'd seen that reminded me of her. "You'd have liked it a lot; you'd have really liked her," these are things I can safely say without the fear that she'll understand my deeper meaning, that her empathe eyes will feel the parts I'm trying to hide, and I'll be naked again, standing in front of her wondering when she'll shut the door. And what of others that have crossed my mind of late? They have, and I ignore them, turning instead to her in all her richness. But there's one who reminds me, at times, of her, and I think in a small corner of empty mindspace that she's a maybe-just-maybe; and there's the girl who isn't those things, who is unavailable but sweet and wicked, wonderful laugher with whom I toy and joke and--dare I say it--flirt. Yes, there are those. But will they do when she is here, right in front of me and all the time? When her eyes can meet mine every morning and some nights when our paths cross? Oh, they will not do. They will not do when she's around. I have my blood, I have her in my thoughts, I am empty and full and a thousand things all at once. |