You held me tight.

we barely knew each other, but lying next to you drunk with christmas cheer and wine… and my first kiss barely moments ago. My christmas was made. You were the icing on the cake. and we went to bed.. together, not a second thought in our heads. I didn’t even know it would be second best to when the lights were out… that moment that followed. For the doubt and insecurity over which you wrote with trust and affection. The moment your hands found mine and pulled me close and into your lips tasting of you and.. a little bit of me. And trapped me in your arms.. You took my breath away.. quite literally too. I thank God… for that moment.  where I lost air in my lungs, but was filled with the hope that was ‘you and I’.

Surprise.Hope.Happiness

He surprised me.
if you are reading this, my wonder… you surprised me like a warmth of a match in the winter of my heart, a hearth that didn’t know fire, or the start of it, like now.

Where did that.. how did you. how? I wonder.. my wonderful surprise. I thank the winds that led you to me. That terrible man that insulted you but led you straight to me.

you surprised me with your warmth, your chuckle, your keen interest in who I  was. You surprised me with presents and wine. I didn’t know I was looking for you… I’m not sure you were looking for me either.  You charmed your way into another moment of time. With me, with you, this time chocolate and a crime.

that day I craved to know what a few more times with you might hold. A hope that things could… become so much more. that you could be bold, for me. A Hope you and I could be so much more than I could have imagined.

And that drunk hazy night, in your arms by fairy light, you took advantage of my weak senses and kissed your way to another crime. Lips I thought that would never know the happiness your lips hopped to across my cheek. You sealed my fate, and made my dreams come true, all at the same time.

Surprise.  Hope. Happiness. In two short months… you showed me all that and that the good lord is good on his word, and immortality is worth it with the right man.

What’s Left of You

I remember you. I remember the beauty in your eyes and your soul, I remember the smile, I remember your heart, I remember what I wanted to protect. I remember your big strong hands, your fair skin, marked by your clumsiness and pride. I remember your head it’s wiry curled crown. I remember all that you were and all that you could be. I also remember your good intentions and painfully, your innocence in all this.

I wish I could say it’s God’s fault for making you perfect. Just perfect for me. But He had other plans for you, plans that don’t involve me. Plans to prosper you and not to undo you with my love. My love for you consumed me, and threatened to consume you too, and everything about you. My love for you which is no more, except for the dregs that circle in my mind as the memories disappear of you and me, as one.

So I remember you now, but you don’t mean the same to me. You don’t feel the same to me. I remember you… but the love that kept you safe in my mind doesn’t protect you anymore, my forgotten love.

My heart forgot you, so my mind only knows what could’ve been all those times my hands slipped over exposed skin. My soul gave up on you, so it wants to corrupt you at any given chance now won. It must burn bridges you don’t even know, because if not, one day my mind will creep in and take what was never mine, just for fun. You didn’t understand the hope you inspired, the lust you fired up. Now the love that protected you is gone,  the monster unchained, but hopefully restrained. But not too quickly. Revenge sounds fun.

It doesn’t forgive as my heart does.. it doesn’t forget like my spirit does, it doesn’t forego as my soul does. My mind seeks vengeance for a heart that was broken. I know what it wants, but I’m not willing to give it. But sometimes it justifies well what might be worthy of damnation. Visions of what could be when my lips know yours for the first to the ten hundredth time. My hands free to know you with no pretense or barrier, with or without your permission. To take what was never consummated. To steal what was never meant to be mine, just because I can, just because I might. Reach out and grab it like eve did, take a bite my body craves, so that I can eat and I will surely forget it lies.

But i know better now. Wiser and stronger thanks to your necessary absence. But still tempted each time you lean in or reach for my hand on reflex, when your leg comfortably rests pasted to mine when seated side by side. I remember what they used to mean, but I remember it in passing, of what was, and what can never be.

Please let what’s left of you peacefully fade.

Presents

You asked me what I want for my birthday…

I tried to hide how incredulous that made me, but with every single time you asked me it was just hurtful. Painful. Disgraceful. You’d think for you, but we’re playing this game where this meant everything for me, and nothing to you… so it’s just disgraceful for me.

Disgraceful that I wasted my time with a young beautiful boy that needed my love and protection, my utmost care and affection, and didn’t even understand and know me enough to know exactly what I would like for my birthday.

Makes it almost disgraceful that I didn’t spare any expense even though I was holding back on spending more, because some gifts would’ve meant too much too soon. So I settled for 20 trinkets to celebrate every year I didn’t know you.

I guess it was my fault I love like no other. That I care and pay attention like no other. Each indistinct conversation we’ve ever had, a single hint you’ve ever given, every left you’ve said when you meant right, every time your eyes gloss over things you’d like to have, and your many justifications and dreams.

You kept pestering me every moment I found myself trapped in your presence. I found myself driven to shouting at you at exactly what I want; you. I’d settle for holding hands with you. You’d make me happier with just the way you smile from under your long lashes, curly hair all a mess, or when I wake up next to you. I almost don’t remember what life was like to sleep on my bed alone. I want to share ice cream with you, and wipe away the muck you manage to get on your face like a little child. I want to work on my work, and for you to fail miserably at your DJ software. I want to see you happy.

But all I want is for you to leave me alone now. However much my heart and mind crave completely the opposite. But as luck would have it, we’ll just constantly be in the same room at least twice a week, constantly in conversation whether we want to be or not. Trapped into a life of loving you till it hurts less.

I remember that day in February a few years back, I saw you for the first time. I was mesmerized. You were cute as hell, baby fat and all. But it was like a light about you that drew me in. I’d hold my breath every time we found ourselves in the same conversation, or when your eyes crossed my eyes the next few months. Your perfect nails, your beautiful brown eyes, the curly hair, sigh… they were all good, but not as attractive as your innocence.

I kept telling myself you’ll never be mine, and you were part of a vicious cycle I kept finding myself in every few months; straight boys that were perfectly my type. I keep blaming my upbringing, my faith, my values for keeping me from getting distracted with my endless list of fans and followers. I knew I shouldn’t be having any hopes for even a friendship with you because all roads would lead to me falling for you in the worst way.

But there you were in every turn, every corner, every wall and every road. I couldn’t run away from you, and you got comfortable yourself. There was a companionable silence in the unsaid bonds we were developing. And before I knew it, you and I became we… and I think I fell in love with the idea of that more than I did with you. And then…

then I fell, harder than the fabled angels ever did.

So this is heartbreak huh?

I’ve read about it, seen it in the movies, heard my friends talk about it. Never understood it, but I guess experience is the best educator. It made me want to apologize to all the heartaches I’ve belittled in the years before today.

I guess in a way I got you to thank for the best present ever. You are something I’ll never regret getting, but you are something that will warn me and make me weary of any love I will ever nurture in my heart.

 

Looking back over knives

that’s exactly what it feels like.

I saw the signs. My friends told me, my mentors told me. My mother even took your side. 
I’d like to look back on all the good times, all the fun, all the joy you inspired, but somehow some way, it seems like you go the extra mile to … to just prove to me, that it meant nothing.. or atleast not as much as it meant for me.

i’ve been told love is love. Everybody loves the same. Love is the same emotion, affection differs. But it’s like you didn’t love me. it hurts to see it now, but you didn’t. like knives in my chest. 

But talking to you about my birthday, all you can say is you don’t know what to get me.
Before I even loved you, i knew what to get you when you were hungry, when you were sad, when you were tired, when we had to celebrate, When it was your fucking birthday, I got you everything you didn’t get from me for 20 years of your life.

But you don’t know what to get me for my birthday, the one year you got to know me so well.

part of me wishes i could have these conversations with you.
but all of me knows you wouldn’t understand.

thinking of you

It’s like I don’t know how to be alone.

Here I am sitting with you in the same room, being your annoying chatty self, annoying me with how you behave like nothings changed.

It fucking has. And all I want is for you to leave. I just want you to walk out of here with your head down, like you did know what it would do to me to see you in my tshirt.. looking better than I ever did in it. Fitting you like a glove.

But as soon as you leave. All I want is company, and to forget for a few painful hours you were seated right next to me, talking to me about all the funny things that you saw, all the fun from your mediocre teeny allowance allowed.

I.cant.do.this.anymore.

I can’t become one of those people. Those broken souls that walk around repeating mistakes. I just can’t.

Moving On, with whom?

My friends call me the unicorn. I celebrated it, I wore it like a badge. I loved it. Unicorns are magical, beautiful and rare.

But what do you do when your the only unicorn in this side of the forest.

I’ve always been different. I had beliefs about love and relationships when I was in my teens, rigid beliefs. I was not willing to compromise on my spirituality either. Sex was a sacred act. A kiss was only for those worthy of it. I didn’t want to say I love you unless I meant it, and felt it from the depths of my heart of hearts. I was growing up in a world of little children practicing the dark arts of flings and sexual encounters like it was second nature. I felt like such an alien against my peers.

What happend to waiting? What happend to maturity? What happened to… love? True love? As the years go on, I’ve seen my friends fall one by one to the cruel ways of the 21st century life.

Colombo has become a breeding ground for… defeated hearts, heroes who’ve lost the plot, priests who have tried to forget their beliefs and warriors their beauty. Their inner beauty. You’ve got to dig to unearth the precious souls, pry them with drugs and alcohol to find some fumbled string that leads you to who they really are.

I fell in love with someone pure. But he was too young and ill experienced to understand my love. He had the beliefs, he had the heart, the right vibe. But we met too soon, or maybe we just knew that and wanted it anyway. And so it’s over now. It’s better this way I tell myself. But I must press on, on my journey of love and discovery.

I opened the door to my heart, but he came in and he had to leave. After he showed me what I had missed all my life of course. Nothing like having something and then never having it again.

He was beautiful, that one. Feathers in his hair and green hand. I will love him forever. But I must move on.

So I’m testing the waters of a very murky pond. Where every fish knows atleast a few other fish, and the cloudiness in their eyes. Its a yucky pond. A pond of old bitter wounded fish.

But I’m a unicorn.  I can’t help wondering I’m wasting my time.

The future we didn’t have

I told myself not to think about that.

I told myself to focus on the now. The here and now when you were with me, in my house, seated next to me, knee to knee, my fingers just drawn to play with your cute curly hair as you droned on about your silly little obsessions like iphone this, ebay that, thinking I was hanging on every word you were saying like it was going to come in an the most important exam of my life. I was.. sad thing was, I was… because a future with you was possible and impossible. Nothing absolute. Grey areas.. I was warned about what they could do to you.

But here I am.. wondering about what could’ve been. I’m hoping its therapeutic to write it out for the whole world to see. Because, life without you now seems possible. But at the same time a guilty pleasure, wrecked with indecision and self loathing.

Two weeks ago, I couldn’t look at your face. But life and I moved on, and I can work with you like what happened just last month never happened. A bad and awkward dream I quickly forgot. Something not even worth mentioning. I’m hoping for the same result here. I’d imagine it once, and it’d be a resolved idea out of my head.

My heart lighter. My head better. My smile more real. My loathing a little less svelte. And you message me dragging me back to a happier time.. when we were us. Like nothing has changed.

Talking of future things… for you.

I wonder… did you imagine me with you, finally with my own iphone to interact with you even more. The batman to my superman, the boy now a man whose hand just found a way into. Mine. Some way, automatically, blissfully.

Weekends when you were back in colombo, falling asleep and waking up in the same bed as me. Maybe with that kitten you promised me for my birthday all grown up in to the moody cat who loved you more than me.

My mum making us breakfast and lunch and showing us off every chance she gets. Me helping your mum with the farm and joining in with her as she picks on your all-round lack of concern about it.

Kisses. Lots of kisses to make up for all the times I stared into your bright brown eyes being drawn into them and finding myself just wanting… just wanting one kiss. Sweet, simple, chaste and pure. Just like my love for you.. that wanted to grow into the other things that followed, with you.

Movie days in, cuddled up in your sheet. Workday lunches, where I sneak you your favorite snacks and sweets with the help of your workmates. Giving your douchebag of a jealous best friend a hard time, together. Game nights with all our closest friends. Going out.. dancing with you, rather than alongside you. Getting drunk, together, on our favorite wine.

Life.. life with you, sounds good in my head. But it’s a pity it can’t be. I’d like to think somewhere out there in a parallel universe, another you and me ended up together. Taking care of me as much as I took care of you. Loving me so much more than you did, or atleast loving me enough to know, it hurts to carry on life without you.

Fix You

Is it that I cared too much? Is it that I never loved? I just saw you.. and saw the beauty within you fighting for a chance, strength looking for a foothold, innocence that needed protection. I wanted to be.. everything you ever needed. At first just a friend, but that’s all I ever wanted to be… everything. I think it was exactly that.. that ruined our friendship, our relationship… I just wanted you with everything I had. And wanted you to want the same. And you didn’t understand me then… because your just a boy still trying to be a man. I hope you understand one day.. why it was hard for me to be “friends” again.

Things that keep me up at night

I keep finding myself sleeping pressed against the wall on the right side of a double bed I’ve spent most of my life sleeping on, indiscriminately. I was once even accused of sleeping on it like I accidentally fell off a tall building and onto it, or with my extra long legs tucked into that comfortable gap in the mattress and the end.. now. Well..

What a difference a few months can make.

For the past couple of months He spent every weekend and odd weekday sleeping on the left side of the bed. He had a designated place of accomodation when he was in colombo, but it wasn’t home, neither was it a welcome place. I wanted to give him that, a place he was welcome, with no rules and regulations for conduct. Just simply be him… the silly boy I was falling in love with. He wanted that too. But like I keep saying, he didn’t fully grasp my thinly veiled intentions. Silly boy, he really was.

Even if I was on it or not, he always slept on the left. I’d do the honorable thing and sleep in the other bedroom if he’s staying the night, then wait till daylight to slip into the right side at first by necessity because my mum kept me up all night with her incessant snoring, but then… i liked sleeping right next to him. I’d wake up a little later and we’d be all legs tangled and warm on a cold rainy colombo sunday. Or I’d wake up mumbling my protest at answering his phone or my phone and he’ll just cut the call and tumble back into the big hug thats put a smile on my hidden face.

Its been almost a month since the pseudo-break up. Things suck less is the best way to put it. But I still find myself getting to the right side of my bed on instinct, waking up with a hand strewn across where he should be.