Here’s how to make a few feet seem like an impossible distance:
For S.D.
affectionately also known as, “buddy-boy.”
You see him from across the room or a street, or a screen, or some impossible distance — in this case, a few feet. and it feels like someone has pressed their thumb against the hollow of your throat.
You don’t know him but you do know his eyes catch light like glass blown warm, his smile- oh, oh and his laughter. his laughter sounds of something breaking inside your chest, of his girlfriend's hands wrapped around your lungs, squeezing.
But what do you know of the quiet? what do you know of him when he’s tired, or bitter, or scared of the dark? you still ache for him in a way that makes you feel rotten inside, like biting into a fruit to find the core black and soft. like touching the edge of a bruise just to feel it sting. and isn’t that the most ridiculous thing? how you could love someone without even knowing what they’re like when they’re tired, or cruel, or how they hold their sadness when there’s no one with them inside.
It doesn’t matter. he doesn’t know your name. you wouldn’t know how to say it if he asked.
But god, he’s beautiful. so beautiful it makes you wonder why the universe allows such things to exist, such fragile, devastating things when all they do is make people like you feel this sick. donna tartt whispers true beauty is always alarming and you tearfully agree.
You tell yourself he’s just pretty. pretty like the stars you can never touch, like a comet, made with the sick type of beauty that is built on leaving. you see him once a month and he makes you happy. pretty face, deep voice, intellectual words but beauty is not a reflection of the soul — he makes you forget that.
Why love him? why him, when better people walk past you daily? better people with kinder eyes, steady hands, voices that won’t ruin you every time they speak.
And the thought of it makes you hate yourself a little, makes you want to crack open your ribs and pull this ugliness out, offer it to the world like some sorry apology, for staring at all.
It’s stupid. it’s unfair. it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. and you carry that hurt with both hands. because what else can you do? so perfect, so untouchable, so out of reach.
You think it’s better to watch from a distance, so you’ll never have to know the look of disgust in his eyes when they look upon you. nothing worth keeping. still, you let the ache live in you, know that if you talk — there will be no answer.
You carry the ache like a stone in your chest, small but impossibly heavy, and learn to live with the weight. you don’t name it. the shame of your love for his beauty or that it was just a lovesick wet dream. you don’t think — just don’t. it won’t leave, it won’t grow. just let it be.
