Of My Light in the Darkness
I saw her on the day she was hired, with hair like fire, and a face that ignited even my cold, fragile heart. She smiled the smile of innocence and warmth, but her eyes told me she knew life as well as any of us, with that slight tinge of yellow that comes when you've straddled the edge of insanity for too long. She was beautiful, I had never seen anyone like her. I’ve never smelled a perfume so undeniably intoxicating, never a shampoo so delightfully floral. We make eye contact when other people are talking, sometimes to smile gently and laugh at their folly, others just to gaze at each other and mentally escape to somewhere else entirely. Maybe a tropical beach where the two of us have a small grass hut together, listening to the waves crash against the sand.
Reality can often be disappointing, but not when it’s with her.
Even the pain is sweet, when she talks to others of her exes, or past relationships. She always does so with an apologetic air when she realizes I’m around. I smile at her and listen because it is not my place to be offended by her past experiences when she is the one who’s had to live them. Better for me to know her traumas so I can more aptly heal the cuts of her heart, through spoken word or passion need not matter, so long as her soul is brighter for my helping.
I want to save her, when her sadness flows like rain. To hold her, to tell her it will be alright. But she’s strong and solitary and certainly doesn’t need me to carry her burdens for her. Though love is not about need. It pains me to see her hurt, and I want to help. But it wouldn’t. Not really. I’d only be helping myself to hold her while her problems persist, none the lesser for it. Even my heart has become selfish in the pursuit of her, and sometimes I forget why I’m not supposed to love her aloud… That pain is less sweet.
Here I must remind myself that it is pain itself that tells us we are truly alive.
My heart beats so loudly I forget to listen to the world around me. It’s plain to see I like her much more than she likes me, but it doesn’t deter me. Not so easily is the heat of romance blown aside, like so many forgotten fantasies. Maybe I am delusional for thinking we could ever be. But the warmth of her smile and the light in her eyes will not release its hold on me; nor may I forget her scent, her laugh… The warmth she brings me simply as a bystander in my story has kept me comfortable in this cold, dark thing we call life.
I stay late at work to lock up for her at least once a week. The best nights are when there’s no one else in the bar and we can simply enjoy each other’s company, even when we’re both exhausted and say nothing, the eye contact we share is all the conversation we need. We take great care not to brush against each other or get too close, lest we rush into something beautiful too quick and ruin the moment. Should this tension last days, months, years, or the rest of my life, it would be the most intoxicating tension I have ever had the pleasure of experiencing, and I would endure it eternally but to be near her.
Should this unsung love flourish or not, I must admit our time together has been some of the happiest of my life. Even should she stray, or fall down, I would pick her back up even if it meant tragedy for myself.
And should she ask me to wait for her, I would wait, until the very end.
