Waiting On Loss Of Hope (Come On)
To be honest, I expected you to say something cliché. I assumed you would turn to me, flick your fingers to cup your pixie chin and lift your eyes. Let them eat cake, you would say. And I would feign delight and drama, roll my eyes with my face tilted to the fairy lights. A rolling, bubbling laugh that would attract the eye. But instead, you pause and slip under silence. Not into; under. It rests like a metallic film, a mesh as fine as lace. A slight frown graces your complexion, fleeting, you purse your lips and raise features to the ceiling, brush the filmy quiet free. Let them be as content as we will never, you say. Let them recognise the stunning, where we won’t. Let them allow the beautiful as a whole, instead of picking it apart until only parts of it are pretty. But pretty things are commonplace. Pretty is a nothing word for a nothing idea. Nobody really wants to be considered pretty. Beautiful is key. Subjective, maybe. But as lustrous an idea as the sight of something or someone you consider to be other-worldly stunning. I’m choosing to remember that night as the night I almost had you. Not the night she stole my pillow and I lay on my back, warm only on the right side. My waistline aching, my tongue and gums crimson, cheeks aflame. Lay on my back and hated some things. So common. So common is such an evening. With a beautiful neck and hunched shoulders. My coddled feline, sleek and neat. Don’t freak out, never looked upon you sleeping. The idea still sweetens the sour, though. When I’m tired and tired of myself and tired of the nothing I do and the nothing I have done. You, though. I did you. And that’s something. Because he doesn’t know I’ve been sleeping with women. And he would never ask. Would never even consider the idea. It is a situation I have idealised, this step into a role I have not created. The biting of my bottom lip while contemplating leaving. Making my base a new city. Somewhere I can be new. I wouldn’t have the stereotype of that crazy redhead chick. That standoffish bitch. That girl with the round face. Her friend. Chain-smoking-drunk-girl. And it’s nice. It’s nice he still considers me new. It’s nice that he knows next-to-nothing about me. What is there to tell, I guess. Let’s just forget it.
But this is all a dream.
In real life, of course, given the opportunity. You would adopt the cliché. Make things sweeter and easier.. Build a short pastry crust around conversation and keep the content sugary and satisfying. In my dreams, though, you aren’t fake. Violently sexual, sometimes. But always consistent.
But I almost had you, didn’t I? You won’t get married for a while, I’d say. You think I won’t get what I want?


