And If We Did

Mother, looking at me

Tell me what do you see?

Yes, I've lost my mind

I can't look at you anymore.

When we pass in the halls, trade reverse affection in class, I can never bring myself to look directly at you. I can look at your slightly rounded ear, your stubborn chin and the tornado of black that crowns your head... your forehead... your scar. It always comes back to your scar, that simple thunderbolt that never ceases to fascinate me, that brand you carry around, hidden for the most part for fear of recognition (like you could hide), like a beacon that draws people and objects straight to you. But I can't look into your eyes, because for the first time in my life I'm not sure what I'll see.

I don't think you mean it, or even realize it, the way everything and everyone seems to stop, suspended in time, hanging by a moment, then slowly begins to rotate around you once more, the way it happens every time you enter a room. Or maybe that's just me.

Maybe it's only me who can't describe the color of your eyes as simply 'green'. Only me who could trace the outline of that beautiful line across your forehead in my sleep. Who knows just how much that scar can turn you on. Me, the taboo.

You told me you loved me once. I hated you for it because I was trying the whole time to stop the phrase from spilling over my lips and into the open space between us, to be ripped and torn and abused and ridiculed until even the words themselves were ashamed. I hated you because you made me feel I didn't have to. I'm sorry I all I could do was stare.

I used to be able to read your face like the cover of a closed book. It was simple because it always showed the same thing. An excess of licks, bites, scratches, dark alcoves and four-poster beds later, I have no idea. Because now, the book's opened - now, you give me more than one emotion to handle.

I'm always frightened that you know what my face is saying, that you know.

At the same time I realize that even you know you can't, perhaps never will - and you know it's because of the danger of my thoughts, my knowledge. You're the only thing I ever wanted to protect, save myself. I'm still not sure what that means.

We're shaky... yet rock steady. We hide in open places.

I can't, don't want to even begin imagining a reaction. Laughing and joking about a schoolboy rivalry is all very good, but pointing and staring for another reason is an entirely different equation. And you know better than to ask me that ending question - even you're not that naïve. Not that innocently hopeful.

My thoughts all crowd together at once and in a moment I'll understand that it's because I love you, but for now all I can do is cry.