You First?

When I think of all the monotony in the world, I think of you. You make me smile. You make me laugh even though I don't do it while you're around.
I guess it is silly to sit and hope you'll notice me, it's been nearly a year with little sign if any. In fact, you hurt me more than I'll let on. Fighting like children, it feels good to know at least I get under your skin. Maybe you aren't what I need, but you're everything I want. You excite me, give me hope there is something worthwhile in the city. I'm not afraid of you anymore, but I know that your opinion could stand to break me. I'd fall into a million pieces, even after I've been so good lately. But I'd die to know. Do you enjoy me as much as I enjoy you? I can tell you look for me in the crowds. You tease me! Flirting with my friends right in front of me as if I can't see you; I can, I do, you simply want a reaction and, well, I refuse. Hope it irks you, I do. You get the most delightful blush when insulted.
You hate cologne and it is a shame, there is no smell, just a feel. I want to know the taste, want to run my hands all over your blazers, fooling no one with their age and poor fit. How did you get so skinny, I wonder, when your family is not? I watch your brother look me over and feel such frustration that he isn't you; I want to scream, with everyone there. I want to slap the table and stomp my foot, frowning in such a way that would have befit my four-year old self. It's hard to contain myself around you at all, I'm so used to being so free with my feelings, most of the time anyway. The words seem so crass and unacceptable, I never dare to say them to you. But that could change, who knows? I don't care anymore. I want to experience you everywhere. I want to break you down, I want to shout out when I see you, hoping you notice me and acknowledge this fact as opposed to being so mysterious. Maybe you do?
There's no one that can excite me the way you do. And it pains me to think you KNOW and let me suffer in the tension that's always between us, forever on edge with each other. Everything I say annoys you, and all you do, given appearances, either bores and disinterests me or is highly offensive to me. You made filthy jokes with me last I saw and it was all I could do to not jump you in front of the crowd. I felt so special you showed this side of you to me, I didn't say it, treasuring the moment until I was so ridiculous I felt sick of myself. I guess that's silly.
I'm going to make you see me. This can't go on like this! You are unfair, lovely. But thank you, for seeing me.

February

I ratted out the wrong man today. That was wrong and I feel terrible. I just couldn't expose the real problem. Does that make sense? I lie very well, sometimes so well, even I end up believing it.
I feel that, there are times, that I hide so much from so many people. I'm alone in this castle I've built up, and it's sad to think, I don't trust like maybe I should. I wait and wait, always expecting the bottom to fall out. And in the end, it sadly usually does. I whine when I get like this, but it's easier to accept the impossibility than to deal with any possibilities.
I really am sorry I hurt you. And there are times I am sorry I couldn't be what you needed. There are times I miss you, there are times I don't. You weren't there for me, and never could be. I couldn't be your Pelham Bay housewife. I'm sorry, I really am. I feel stagnant ever since, but it's a pleasure and relief to feel something, anything, after so long of feeling down and unattractive. I felt trapped with you. I felt as if I could never be myself around you without being judged. I felt like we always competed. I felt like you were out to get me. I felt like I had to hold back when speaking to you, for fear of being ruined somehow. I felt tied down, as if nothing good could happen to me so long as you held me back out of spite, jealousy, fear. You told me I was cold and unyielding, I just couldn't lie like you can. I couldn't pretend anymore. I planned a future with you that had no part of me in it. I didn't understand what you saw in me, I didn't see in you what I envied in other girls' lives.
You refused to go out with me for Valentine's Day. It's a stupid holiday, you used to say. I was never enough on my own. I eventually understood I was never enough.
I never gave to you. I understand that, in retrospect. I never let you in. I never felt I could. I don't trust.
I never told you I loved you over the phone, rarely said it in person. It seemed too silly, ridiculous, meaningless words. I was selfish.
I didn't want to be married to a man I knew I'd eventually resent. Isn't it true all husbands and wives resent eachother, you used to ask. Yes. You are the reason I believe that, and the way I treated you made you that way. I don't know how to be with someone completely. I'm caught up in this existence where everyone leaves the minute it stops being fun. I've learned to walk away with such ease I fool even myself.
There was a time I used to imagine the day you'd ask me. That turned to a dread, slowly into our relationship. What changed? I stopped chasing after you. For ten long years, I chased after you.
I'm sorry you loved me. I'm sorry I couldn't love you back long enough to last. I think you deserve someone who can. And maybe I do as well.