Obsessed with you.

Did you want to hear a secret? Here's it, you don't know where I am right now, what I am doing right now. Do you know how many strangers you see in a day? Oh, I get it, you are stuck at home with this pandemic barking around. Through the internet then? You've seen me but you'll never know what I look like. Probably your neighbour, probably that one stranger who commented on your post, perhaps the new unknown follower on your media account. Anything. Anyone. Anywhere. You won't even know how I watch you, your every action, how beautifully you curl into your sheets when you sleep, how you see the mirror and get yourself together, you won't even know if that mirror has eyes behind it. Or even the windows, or even your closet, you feel safe, unaware that two grey balls are staring at you, examining your every move, obsessed with you, addicted to you.

As you are tracing your eyes through this, you are directly facing me, your eyes land on mine, my original grey balls are hidden under blue lenses, you scrutinize the rest of me, my skin hurts with the presence of this fake beard I put on, the fake moustache, my hairs pulled tightly in a bun, then a curtain style wig smirking at you as it has been well gelled. My attire casual with a sweatshirt, chest broad because I made fake broad chest with newspaper and tape, my balancing skill gave me the right to hide a stick beneath my loose pants, like a man I walked the streets, wandering normally, smiling normally, following you normally. What would you say if you saw me around? You won't even get a chance to blink, you'll see me gone, a smile spread across my lips, binoculars pressed against my eyes.

Past has nothing to do with my present behaviour, I simply grew up orphan, saw a simple life, studied because I wanted a good-paying job. Interviewed every place I sent an email just two days after I graduated from arts. I loved paintings, they have stories to tell and secrets to whisper. But I didn't take that field because I was in a hunt for a permanent paying job. So I did get a job, I liked it, I joined it, I was getting paid, and I was living my simple life. I thought that is what a normal bored up fellow would define life; live and let live.

But everybody hides something. Something so dark that there's no point in trying to see through it, it is just shadowed.

Louise-my roommate and another source of rental income- became my first ever friend, I mean I had friends in school but they were made for lunch issues. Louise talked with me, shared pieces of her past with me, I had nothing to tell her except that my first ever job as a teenager was to go to a neighbouring farm and scoop cow crap. She laughed throwing her heavenly shaped head back, though that story wasn't a joke for me, the sweet honey-like voice of her laughter echoed in my mind, quickly registering in my brain for many rewinds later, she had a nice tone around her which grabs you and poisons you with sweet talks and pleasant voice that pours the sugar in your mind, and if you don't like sugar, just twist the words as you desire, her talks get both bitter, salty and sour, but everything she does, she does it perfectly, even when perfection doesn't exist. She was perfect just the way she showed.

Louise had it all but still didn't, though everything inside her was beaming with felicity, she didn't have a permanent job, after all, she ran away from her mom, her reason made me hug her like a big sister, she thought that a 24-year-old girl should not rely on her mother anymore, she wanted to satisfy her mother by ticking every wish on her mum's bucket list. I felt proud of myself to set her a permanent job in a restaurant for the post of head chef. I didn't know how I did this, but I had absentmindedly emailed the restaurant for a job, my seat was vacant and I realised my cooking skills just helped me to survive, so I set her up.

I love how you stare back at me, skimming through the lines, you seem to have a nice heart, if not then you're just justifying yourself. Even the criminals have melted once in their life. Louise was it, my melting weakness. I thought she was all I never had, a family, somebody who cared about my existence, corrected when I went wrong, made me dinner every night, a friend who's presence warms the environments, warms my heart which I left cold from that winter when my folks stopped breathing. She became a friend whom I walked holding hands in the streets, whom I laughed with, cried with, watched movies with, went to the gym. I never looked at her facial features, her affection was itself glorious.  

Too much Louise talking?, she was good to me before, I wished she hadn't done that...

Dreams had to end someday.

I hid it from everyone, even lied to myself when it went truly terrible, justifying that it was just my shadowed feelings, these raging feeling I had from my colleagues and former bosses and some locals, who happened to spat insults at me.

"You don't belong here", one of the former interviewers said seeing the crocked setting of my teeth. For no reason, he joked my presence in front of twenty strangers!? He didn't even acknowledge my confidence.

"Shorty Linda!" A woman from the neighbourhood spat whenever I walked back home. I smiled at her, giving the best performance of not caring what she said. I have a place to express it so I didn't care...

And then more, more bitter adjectives that were supposed to make me mad, I didn't, I would never dance to what they say, I like my opinion. My secret was this, I had a diary titled "fantasies" where I let out all the poisonous descriptions about them, writing down my obsession about their bad life, my ways to make their life hell, worse than being dead. But of course, I would never do that in terms of action, it only stayed inside that book.

I thought Louise would understand...understand that I was deeply y hurt when I say"everything is fine". That I'm not. That I'm alone. That I wanted to kill myself when for no reason so many had the grudge against me.........Louise meant a lot to me.

That night when I introduced her to my darkest side, she smiled, squeezed my shoulder and then hugged me, "it is not your fault", she said. That was what I wanted to hear, my Louise believes me.

That's where I was wrong. After 2 weeks she fled to the cops with my diary, claimed that I had psychopathic conditions, she showed knife scratches which were not my art but she claimed it to be mine, said that she was in danger. I'm still confused about why she did that, but she stabbed my feelings there and then. It was over.

It wasn't my fault about what happened next. I never heard from her or that city. I came here, now that the Louise place is empty, I know you would be here for me...Since you asked me to tell you a secret, it means that you want to know me more, I want to know you more. I can't help but blush a little as your ravishing eyes are skimming slowly, observing every inch of me in the register of your mind. I have to admit it, your touch is so comforting. Soon you'll hear me speaking face to face.

If you say that you don't deserve what you deserve, you're just kidding yourself. From how much I've seen, from what I've noticed, you with your kind heart can hide my secrets, can hold my pieces if I ever break, I never thought I would ever ask for a family, but the good Louise was an addiction which now itches my brain, I need my good Louise back.

Sometimes a man. Sometimes a woman. Different disguises. Different attitude. Different accents. Different history. Different jobs. I've forgotten who I was 1 year ago. I do it because its good to explore different parts of yourself, test your skill, how to change like a chameleon and disappear like a cheetah. Like a double stuffed burger, different layers, different personality, different taste. I hated Linda who trusted Louise, got so selfish with her own needs that she avoided the greedy Louise behind her. But you, my friend, are unlike her. You are more true, I can see from your eyes, though you lie sometimes, you are imperfectly perfect.

You still are unaware of my whereabouts, what are you thinking?. Maybe the delivery man that smiled at you, do you know who was he? Me? I've seen you now so many times that you have become the subject of my paintings, your structure is perfectly carved for a dreamy sunset painting, for a glorious figure dancing, flowing its arms around like wings, eyes a mystery as they hide many things. Your house, my favourite binge. Your daily routine, my interest. Your emotions, my subject of painting. Your personality, my obsession.

Will you be my friend? Hold me when I need you? Stitch me when I tore? Bandaid me when I get hurt? Stand with me when others shout? Pull me out when I drown? Will you be my Louise? My good Louise?. Will you be able to keep the secret about the one lie Linda said to the cops;

"I don't have any idea about what you're saying, sir. Louise had sleepwalking issues which you can confront with her doctor. But that night I wasn't even there with her, I have no idea how she died."