Love Me

I've seen him. Many times I've seen ... He smiles a lot. He's kind of goofy, and silly. The way his cheeks grow fat when he smiles, and his lashes flutter to shade his eyes from the bright light erupting from him. He's my everything, or so I thought, believed? A boy, who danced in cinnamon and decided this is the skin he'll wear. He didn't want to be unusual so he went for brown eyes. He wasn't given the world though. No golden spoon hanging from his mouth. He was poor, and hungry. All he had was his faith because he was too shy to have anything else. But honestly, he didn't want anything else. He was content and joyous with his faith and his family. A musician he'll turn out to be. One for a small portion of the world to watch. One in which, I decided to watch.

I'd planned to never love again as I watched my mother change and grow. I wanted to be by her side, and like Ruth, I gave up the idea of a husband, of true love, even if it meant never experiencing something I'd been longing for. My mother—she is worth it. But things changed, and for a second, there was a glimmer of hope for me. The boy. The boy I'd only seen before, I began to watch him. I knew him well, but had never spoken to him. I knew his heart, but had never lie with him. I knew his mind, but had never felt him. How could I know a boy I've never known? But he was different ... I knew him.

He was what I wanted, and what I'd been hoping for. A girlish fantasy that everything I'd hope for was beginning to play out before me ... Until it stopped. Until it no longer played. The record player stopped working, and the dancers stopped dancing, the crowd grew quiet, and the onlookers grew silent. He was in love with someone else. The way he played with her golden hair. The way he smiled that smile I'd cherish as mine alone, was now someone else's. I'd been walking on a two way street, until eventually I realized that I was walking alone on a one way street. The lamps didn't work, the cars didn't come by, no one breathed but me. It was cold there, very still. The plush grass was no longer green, and the grey sky seemed to grow darker as my heart began to break. Hoping, believing that what I'd seen was not of the cinnamon boy I longed for. I continued to watch, in the hopes that things would change, but they did not.

He became happier, and she became prettier. Long lush curls to tangle his heart in, but he'd willing do so for her. She became his peace, his strength. His music frolicked for attention, but the taste of her sweet cherry lips hushed his music beyond a quiet whisper. Now his lyrics whimpered, but for him, it was merely background noise he could do away with as all he needed, he had. Such warmth drained from the scene, only to stain my heart in a persistent longing to be the one he would love. Endlessly, I watched. Attentive to the small breaths he took whenever she fascinated him. Her radiant glory charmed him, and head over high hills he fell. But he did not plummet, rather, he slid and allowed his yearning to feast on the woman he now loved. I began to stumble, as I could no longer see. They swelled and bubbled over like hot water on an open fire. My cheeks became stained and the salt soon became apart me. When I finally realized, my feet no longer carried me. The road began to make me, it was far too late. I'd been watching him for so long that I'd wandered off onto a road that only I could walk.

Now, I do not watch him. I don't believe I can. He breaks me every time I see his golden smile because I know it is not for me, but for someone else. It is someone else who is now making him happy. It is someone who is the reason for his smile ... It is someone else who he will love, and it is someone else that I am not.