Never thought I’d be here again
Pining again
Feeling again
Swept up in the moment again
In a smile again
I thought I was over it
Over romance
Over random chance
Over falling into eyes which linger just too long on mine
But no
Turns out that love is young
And dumb
And turns out I’m not immune to it
Turns out I’m just as weak as any other poor lost soul
And yeah
This sucks
The way I only see you every other day?
It sucks
The way it feels like the whole world falls away?
It sucks
The radiance of your smile, the passing of the pain?
It sucks!
But not because it’s bad
Not because it hurts
But because I wanted you so much that I compared you
to stardust
It sucks because there’s really something here
I’m not delusional
You’re not ephemeral
I am not tantalus and you are not my folly
We’re just two kids
Two kids who stare at each other just a moment longer
than really is needed
Two kids who maybe make excuses to jokingly
shake hands
Two kids who tease and prod
One kid who tries so hard to flirt and crashes and burns
So
So badly
One kid who watches me flounder, giggling all the same
One kid who flirts with their friends and is smoother
than butter
But when the stakes are high
When it’s expression of interest and not just an ego-boost
Well, apparently the gods decided I’m only allowed to
torment my friends and myself
Because hell if I’ll ever pull one off with you
We’re just a couple of kids
One tall and loud
One short and quiet
One learning to live strange things
One learning to deal with the others’ strange things
Bouncing off each other
Reflecting and refracting
Acting and reacting
Smiling and laughing
Maybe it’s best to take things slow
I’ll show you my horses if you show me your goats?
But the time is counting down it’s a dagger at my throat
How much longer can the quarter last
When I’ve had you in at least one class
For five semesters past
And how many moments have I wasted
Waded over like broken glass
Staring at the shattered memories
Shared trauma and this lesbian romance mess we’ve both
left behind in our tracks
And thinking
‘She’s not that cute’
Well eat it past me
You were wrong and you knew it
I’ll give you that for free
But now’s not the time to stay looking back
Not the time to be stuck in the vices of the past
When the days are ticking down and I’m not sure if you’ll
text back
And I need an excuse to message you
Not about school but nothing too personal
Gods I’ve written and spoken myself into a corner
And I can’t fuck this up because with you my day’s so
much warmer
Maybe I should just let it ride
Go in and out with the tide
Ripples on a lake
A slow give and take
And I used to write about stardust
About planetary yearning and the gusto of the gods
Of smiles like ambrosia and the wine of heavens held in
momentary touches
But none of that was real
All a dressed up picture of what I wanted to feel
But you
You are real
Here in front of me
And that’s where I want to be
Across from you
Or next to you
Or one row over and one row back
So I can sit and stare at you
And catch your backwards glances while I embroider
sitting there by you
So I can try and hide my smile but still have it laid
bare by you
And let the moments pass while I just sit and feel for you
All that I do
And hope that I can make a move
Do something small and again and once more
And maybe I can try to prove
That even though I’m three years later than I’d have
liked to be
I’m still here for you if you want to be here for me
Then that’s great
And if not
That’s ok
Because at the end of the year
Of the week
Of the day
It never was a big deal anyway
And who knows if we’ll see each other again next year
The paths we walk are different
Though their halls are oh so near
Maybe at the end of the day
At the end of the tunnel
At the end of it all
It was only ever growing pains after all
But still I think I’ll try
I’ll shoot my shot a few more times
And eventually I’ll just come out with it
Say it outright like I’m oh so loath to do
I’ve never deigned to before but maybe
Maybe for you
Because practicing my speech
Hell I’m Portia and you know it
I got on my knees and goddamn am I so, so screwed
Not that you’re Brutus but from this angle
You look like an angel
And I think I’d give myself a voluntary wound for you
Use my once commended beauty and pull out all my
charms for you
Get all up in arms for you
Be my practice Brutus and I can be your Casca
I’ll let my hands do the talking next time we hold on just a
moment too long
Linger a second too late
Till one of us pulls away
And I might be blushing but I think you are too
And I’m too caught up in the moment to care anyway
Because I’ve seen and done strange things
But never something quite as wild
As these new growing pains