I lie because boredom stings like singing and sunlight and stardom.
I lie because I don't like what I see in the mirror
His name is Louis -- no one is allowed to say anything -- and he looks exactly how he should. His bone structure suggests a possible career in modelling and the way he looks at you is exactly how a man is supposed to, exactly the way you want him to. When he talks to you, his face is so close, it scares you a little because it's like he's always going to kiss you. But he never does.
He shows up and ducks out like a dream, popping in and out of reality when he finds it convenient, when you need him most. He doesn't think you're the prettiest girl he's ever seen, but he likes you anyway. He says it's because you're funny, and sometimes, when you've just cried and you try to laugh and you look like you've broken yourself, like a kitten someone left out in the rain, he takes you in his arms and it feels like you belong there.
Sometimes he doesn't let go til' morning.
But there are evenings when you're with your friends and he's in a journal. There are days when other people feel like alone. You sit under the rug of conversation and disappear.
His name is Louis and he is only yours and he doesn't like that. He doesn't like just being yours. What kind of lunatic would want to belong to you. So he kisses you, stop, he whimpers. His lips along your neck, stop it, he says through his teeth. You are so beautiful, he stammers into your hair. You're crying. He's angry. You hold on to him as he stands there, tall and unmoving, fists balled at his sides. You're being a child.
He is gone for weeks. You realize that sinking even deeper into yourself was worse than you thought it would be. There's a darkness in your hazy you didn't know was there. There's a dent in the design, a glitch in the glitter. The plane was endless and you kept wandering. The hard rain against your window reminds you to wake up. You watch the droplets merge and slither and pool.
You beg him to come back.
His name is Louis and he smiles at you from the window opposite yours. He's got lovely brown hair and eyes that make you wish you could give him everything he wanted. You can tell from 50 feet away, through glass and brick, through the air space and hospital gowns that his skin was shock therapy. You especially love him in the afternoons, when he'd draw back the blinds, prop up a chair, and sit in front of his window for thirty whole minutes.
The light shatters him. Underneath his hospital gown, he's perfect, you think. Under yours, you are fractured and scarring and cracked in unreachable places, in a way the doctors can't fix. He will be a beacon until he dies.
At night, his abstraction embraces you, when the blinds are closed and the lights are off, his arms are around you and your fragments click. Don't be afraid, he whispers. He likes you for your humor and the way your teeth sometimes chatter when it's cold, and the shape of your knuckles straining against your skin. He kisses the shallow cuts on your shoulders.
His eyes are blue, you decide.
His name is Louis and he says what he's supposed to. You can do this, he shouts from his spot by the door. At the edge of the edge, you look down and see traffic and hear music and taste God. He's in his paper blue paper thin hospital dressings and you're in your mint green paper thin hospital gown with the ribbon tied loosely behind you. He shouts again, Now or never!
He's at your side, wrapping you up, holding you back, holding you there. There's still time to change your mind, he says into your neck. You shiver. The lights of the city are in your eyes, you're caught in the headlights, streetlights, moonlight, limelight.
You take a step forward. It takes seconds. People are holding their breath, you imagine. Louis is hiding in a hospital wing, asleep, oblivious. You imagine him next to you before your bones break and your blood spills into finality and the cold hard concrete is softened by your suffering and you thank him.
There's a place in heaven for good people who sit by their window, you think, who without their knowing, hold you at night when no one is there. There is a place in heaven for the stranger, the idea, the saving grace that holds you back and lets you go, a keeper, a goodbye. Goodnight.
He shows up and ducks out like a dream, popping in and out of reality when he finds it convenient, when you need him most. He doesn't think you're the prettiest girl he's ever seen, but he likes you anyway. He says it's because you're funny, and sometimes, when you've just cried and you try to laugh and you look like you've broken yourself, like a kitten someone left out in the rain, he takes you in his arms and it feels like you belong there.
Sometimes he doesn't let go til' morning.
But there are evenings when you're with your friends and he's in a journal. There are days when other people feel like alone. You sit under the rug of conversation and disappear.
His name is Louis and he is only yours and he doesn't like that. He doesn't like just being yours. What kind of lunatic would want to belong to you. So he kisses you, stop, he whimpers. His lips along your neck, stop it, he says through his teeth. You are so beautiful, he stammers into your hair. You're crying. He's angry. You hold on to him as he stands there, tall and unmoving, fists balled at his sides. You're being a child.
He is gone for weeks. You realize that sinking even deeper into yourself was worse than you thought it would be. There's a darkness in your hazy you didn't know was there. There's a dent in the design, a glitch in the glitter. The plane was endless and you kept wandering. The hard rain against your window reminds you to wake up. You watch the droplets merge and slither and pool.
You beg him to come back.
His name is Louis and he smiles at you from the window opposite yours. He's got lovely brown hair and eyes that make you wish you could give him everything he wanted. You can tell from 50 feet away, through glass and brick, through the air space and hospital gowns that his skin was shock therapy. You especially love him in the afternoons, when he'd draw back the blinds, prop up a chair, and sit in front of his window for thirty whole minutes.
The light shatters him. Underneath his hospital gown, he's perfect, you think. Under yours, you are fractured and scarring and cracked in unreachable places, in a way the doctors can't fix. He will be a beacon until he dies.
At night, his abstraction embraces you, when the blinds are closed and the lights are off, his arms are around you and your fragments click. Don't be afraid, he whispers. He likes you for your humor and the way your teeth sometimes chatter when it's cold, and the shape of your knuckles straining against your skin. He kisses the shallow cuts on your shoulders.
His eyes are blue, you decide.
His name is Louis and he says what he's supposed to. You can do this, he shouts from his spot by the door. At the edge of the edge, you look down and see traffic and hear music and taste God. He's in his paper blue paper thin hospital dressings and you're in your mint green paper thin hospital gown with the ribbon tied loosely behind you. He shouts again, Now or never!
He's at your side, wrapping you up, holding you back, holding you there. There's still time to change your mind, he says into your neck. You shiver. The lights of the city are in your eyes, you're caught in the headlights, streetlights, moonlight, limelight.
You take a step forward. It takes seconds. People are holding their breath, you imagine. Louis is hiding in a hospital wing, asleep, oblivious. You imagine him next to you before your bones break and your blood spills into finality and the cold hard concrete is softened by your suffering and you thank him.
There's a place in heaven for good people who sit by their window, you think, who without their knowing, hold you at night when no one is there. There is a place in heaven for the stranger, the idea, the saving grace that holds you back and lets you go, a keeper, a goodbye. Goodnight.
