To Be

Her hopes climbed more and more. Each day as his texts reached her phone, a color new to man sprouted within her. Her voice rang louder as lyrics escaped her car’s speakers and her foot stepped lighter. All things seemed to fall into place without claiming a place at all. And a place may well have been where things belonged. Simple words piled upon each other like wet sand dripping from a child’s fingers. They lacked structure. In him she saw the stars and in his attention she gained the universe. Yet his words were simple. Her long mellowed heart had awakened and with its slumber he took her guard. In day dreams his words elaborated into schemes and convoluted paths that lacked steps or probability. She saw what had never been broken and freely she entertained it, a virgin of love and recklessly a virgin of pain. And his words were so simple.

Torn down, ripped. Spoiled. Defiled. Words she did not yet understand. His words lead her like the pied piper up a staircase of naiveté only to reach the top and without a destination fall helplessly with no railing to catch her. His words were like empty cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other, incapable of holding her weight. They were empty. But from the outside they held a mask meant for theater that begged compliance. Seemingly fit with feeling and intention. But ask him if he remembered a word she said to him.

Do you wanna hang out this weekend?

Yeah! What time?

So little intent. They met and he said simple words. Hers were complex and hers were her being. He had been given a gift of her soul in her outlook and his ears didn’t take it. He saw her in her body and forgot to see her eyes sparkle and what happened when someone asked about her passions. He was empty, somehow turned by a soul previously soured. She spoke and he agreed. He agreed and spoke simply. Spoke shortly. Cared little. The leather seats in his car flaked along its curves from years of wear like the battleground of some tattered scape. Moonlight poured from the windows. She watched her shoes beneath the shade of the glove box. Racked her mind.

You like football so far?

Yeah. His empty smile.

She looked up at his eyes and he was already looking and she saw what masked his lust for what he had not yet gotten. He hadn’t spoke much of himself but she reasoned he was the type to open up slowly. They talked until she decided it was late.

I should probably head home.

Okay.

She lifted the door’s handle and rose from her seat. The night bit her cheeks and unsheathed her silver breath. Her hand rested on the car’s cold frame and she bent to see his face. See ya. She turned, a smile spread beneath her cold nose as she walked to her car. This had felt like just the start. She wanted to know him.

Soon the darkness would fall. Her first taste of sweet would be her first taste of poison and it would come without warning like a forest fire through an unexpecting garden. She would not be enough and his attention would cease as fast as it came about. She would ask why they no longer talked. He would tell her her greatest fear. She would say it was okay. She would lie because she had no argument over what never was. She would feel his false perfection in a way that somehow diminished her’s, not yet realizing the truth in her mother’s words that some boys only wanted one thing. She would take his rejection with her and change in herself what he had not even seen. She loved without knowledge of stifled words or feelings and so she brought with her simple presence the un-masked representation of her being. Her entire being would not be enough. With an avalanche of daggers she would blindly accept some wrongness that caused him to change his mind and she would pull her being within her.

She would love again. He would be small on her timeline. Her love would forever be masked and her being would forever be hidden beneath layers of doubt. Her young daughter would love freely and she would tell her what every mother had learned for herself.

Some boys only want one thing.