There's something that has to happen, but I can't seem to remember what. Everything seems to have vanished from my mind as I lay here, starring dazedly somewhere between the ceiling and the boy next to me. He seems to be asleep, but I can feel the tension between his shoulder blades even from this distance.
The release was enough, but now there's something that has to happen. He's waiting for it. I'm supposed to say something - but god knows what it is.
I don't particularly care anyway. He isn't the one I was thinking of. He never is. Whoever he is.
The numbness that always follows is seeping away now in a slow way. It starts in my chest, allowing the pain to pool and eddy there. I know it'll soon spread and become part of my whole.
Slowly, or perhaps it only seems that way to me, he turns away. Disappointed. I missed my queue again; but I don't care. I take this reprieve to piece myself back together. Slowly reassemble the armour that dulls the pain, slowly build the wall that blocks out the world, carefully replace the face that shows them what they want to see.
I never get the eyes quite right.
Now it clicks into place. The embrace. The "I love you". It seems too late for the latter now (thankfully), so I turn and wrap my armoured arm around his chest. My leg follows suit and slips over his in some remembered entwinement. I've played this part before. I'm a natural.
His hand finds mine and holds me to him, grateful. Loving.
My tears go unfallen and I force myself to sleep.
This game, this play that we call love; it is nothing. It has feeling, true enough, but it is nothing in comparison to Love. Like the memory of the love I have felt, I let it echo through me and channel it where it needs to be. Drawing on some well of amour to replicate it down the line; while all the time holding that real love deep inside somewhere. Forcing it down and out of sight, but never out of mind. Pushing it away like a naughty child begging for comfort. As though the feeling is wrong.
Perhaps it is wrong; but I'll never admit to it. How can love be wrong?
But enough of this pathetic diatribe.
Happier next time.
Blessed be.
