Shame

I could probably write a novel about him.

No matter what I do, no matter what he does, no matter what people tell me, I feel that if I do not conceal this part of me, I may never find happiness.

In a couple of years, we'll part. What was a nonexistent bond, something I've foreshadowed through distant glances and knowing communication between acquaintances, will cease to exist. Those desperate states and hushed tones will no longer tie us together, and whose fault will that be?

Mine. I believed that if I was sufficient, that if I changed, then he would love me. That he would notice me.

I pushed against my legs, hurt myself internally, and stayed up long endless nights hoping to prevail in a way that I could no longer be unnoticeable.

But, whenever a man falls to his knees, he's not there. Everyone a gift is purchased just for me, it isn't him at the register. Every time someone utters my name, it isn't his lips.

It's all my fault, and I shouldn't blame him. Just look at him. He'll never really know what he means to some people.

What he means to me.

What a shame that is.

It was those eyes that intrigued me so long ago. What did I do? All I did was want to be like him. Just wanted to be so intelligent, so remarkable, and so talented that I could be something that he was. He saw everything so maturely, and he acted upon his thoughts. I would like to say that his thoughts were pure.

But who am I to say that?

His thoughts were never meant to be analyzed.

Especially by someone like me.

And the thing is that I believed his thoughts would be beautiful. I really did, and that was the basis of my addiction. But he is a man, and I am just a feather.

Floating away, furiously scribbling down any information retrieved, a gentle breeze is sure to knock me away. Floating into oblivion. And he is a man. He's a man. No longer a boy. A man filled with furious thoughts and rage I wish I could understand.

I feel if he spoke, I would understand. I would listen to him. I would listen to his thoughts because I always wanted to analyze them.

A myriad of soliloquies and songbirds dance in my heart when he comes over, and I never thought he would. But he did. And I think I saw him staring, but who am I to assume that?

My eyes flutter just as my limbs do.

I've starved myself. Just so that I could be something less for something to grand.

He's a man.

No longer the putrid boy I knew six years ago. What a shame it is for him to not know just how I've watched him grow.

What a shame.

What a shame he doesn't know how I've detailed my heart's words for six years in journals hidden away. Praying that they would never see the light of day.

What a shame he will never know the amount of songs, poems, essays, stories, and pages I've written for him, about him, and anything that could pertain to him.

It's always been him.

I hope it doesn't end up with that, though, because once I am older, a woman, I hope he is not the only man in my eyes.

I hope I am a woman, a fierce and strong leader. I hope he'll be the one who notices just how I've grown.

Maybe then I'll find that he hasn't felt this way all this time. I would've always known it, but I am a girl. Not a woman. A woman must face her truth while a girl sings with it hoping it'll become a lie.

What a shame I search for lies.

But I am not a key. I am not someone that should search for these things because I'm not the only one with these thoughts. I'm not the only little girl hoping to emerge into a woman just so I could forget about him.

But, how could I ever?

He's beautiful, he's intelligent, he's talented, and he's kind. I would like to believe that he is the kindest soul out there, but that would be a disgrace to the mothers who have come before him.

But, I don't want to excuse his gentle voice and his sweet words. How they tenderly wrap around me and embrace me with a hug that I hold onto, touch-starved, for years after its release.

I hold onto his breath because I dreamed once as a girl that if he and I were a decision, I would allow him to live and for me to meet my creator.

I would toss in my bed because I believed that when he looked at me when crossing my name in attendance that he knew I existed. I existed with him, and he knew that I was who I was. Someone new. Someone who presumably was stubborn, dedicated, and professionally a "try-hard" who tried too damn hard to appease everyone that was so easily charmed by him.

And when his friends pushed him to me in the status quo, no longer a trace of a memory from years past, instead a reminder that I still exist to him as of these dry, September months, then would I not have the ability to believe that we could exist?

His friends called me teasingly, "his best friend," when they thought I could not hear, but do they not understand I would easily succumb to that title? I was always listening just to await a breath to know he was alive. I was always waiting for that dulcet tone to escape that just reminded me that he was no longer a boy.

No longer a boy with a hushed voice and sacred attitude. He was a man with a soothing deep voice with the ability to entrance rooms. Far more than the little boy I knew.

But the thing is that he was always so much more than a little boy. However, sadly, I don't think he's so much more than a man.

As I look at him from across the room, the cafeteria buzzes of cacophony, and I don't pledge to seek out his dulcet tone.

I seek comfort in the noise and pandemonium because that's all I've ever grown to know.

He's a man, but he's not so much more than one.

He's just him.

And I'll never really know what that actually means.