"he loves me"

            The letters fall to the floor before my eyes.  The words, her words, drift slowly….time you called  to her my eyes brightened.  She talked about you a bit but didn’t

There was Kyla, sitting on the seat of the bus talking to her, and I was looking at Kyla, calling to Kyla, and she is invisible beside her. 

            love how you know and say what I think.  To open my mouth and share would

            She thinks that I think like her.  She thinks there’s a connection between us. 

            see your face.  I love your face.  It haunts me at night but it

            Every time she sees my face she flushes.  I’ve stopped looking her. 

            time you called to her my eyes brightened.  She talked about a bit but didn’t

            I’m tired of this.  I don’t want to see these words. 

I’m not even sure who you are because you never talk to me, but you’re always looking out from under those long dark bangs.  God it annoys me, that gentle flow of tears I see emerging from what must be the eyes that exist underneath.  You think I’ll pity you?  You think those songs you sing and those stories you tell under your breath, under the covers, in the dark, late at night will reach my expectant ears?  I cannot see you.  I do not notice you.  You don’t exist, except as a blubbering, blundering annoyance. 

It was your birthday, and I wrote on your wall because you practically begged me to, what with your teary eyes as you sat by yourself at lunch.  I mean, it’s your birthday for God’s sake and there were like seven people that wrote on your wall.  Seven.  And nobody cares about the meaning behind facebook birthday wishes, anyways.  I mean, for all I knew it wasn’t even your real birthday.  

I put that effort in, even though you’ve never talked to me.  Anyways, don’t expect this again.  You can’t expect my attention and you can’t expect me to acknowledge you exist.  These things must be earned.  And you have put no effort into earning them.  Into earning me.  You don’t deserve me. 

Watch carefully as my lips say these words.  I want you to retain both the visual and the auditory memory of this moment.  Ehem.  

I am not your savior.  I am not your lover.  I am not your friend.  Don’t look at me like that.  It’s creeping me out. 

see your face.  I love your face.  It haunts me at night but it
These letters fall before my eyes and I’m disgusted by them.  Why do you show me them?  I don’t want to see them. 

time you called to her my eyes brightened.  She talked about you a bit but didn’t

Yes I know.  Kyla Ciranni.  Eighth grade.  I’d had a huge crush on her and everyone knew it but she didn’t like me back. 

            love how you know and say what I think.  To open my mouth and share would

            I don’t.  I don’t think like you.  What with your stare and your tears and your--

Ok… you’ve stopped.  You’re different somehow.  I catch your eye at its corner when it thinks I am not looking, but it darts away before I know if it was really ever there.  Is that a smile you’re giving him?  Are you smiling?  You… You betrayer.  You said it had to be me.  You said so, I heard you under the sheets, in the dark, your words loud for their lack of face.  I’d owned you. 

I mean, you think you have my attention?   You think I’m watching you in your nonchalance?  You think that proud stance, those hands on your hips and spite on your face will sway me to bow to you.  I own you. 

            “You own me?” she says.  “You own me?”

            She stands before me, more mature looking than I’ve ever seen her.  It seems she has makeup on.  She thrusts a pile of paper onto the floor, and it scatters, loose leaf and lined, covered in once heartfelt scribbles. 

            “See these words?” she picks a handful of papers and waves them at me.  “These are my letters.  These are the reasons I deserve you.” 

            I don’t want to look so I cover my eyes.  Through my fingers though, the words are larger than I’ve ever seen them.  

           
            see your face.  I love your face.  It haunts me at night but it

            back and forth they wave

            grand the way your eyes melted for a moment.  She didn’t know but I knew.  I always

            and then a few seats a way you awkwardly sat down.   Kyla was right there and she didn’t

            I can’t not look. 

            time you called to her my eyes brightened.  She talked about a bit but didn’t

            your name down please,” I’d said.  How foolish of me.  I never apologized for

            Oh right.  Ha… I remember that too.  

            “wow, so fancy. What’s the occasion?”  How could he have known?  I didn’t blame

            So long ago.  This girl is crazy. 

            And then she picks up a few papers, aligns them, and carefully, despicably, exaggeratingly rips at their center.  Every rip and my laugh fades just a bit more. 

            She rips at it again. 

            “You don’t own me,” she says. 

            “I know.” I’m not smiling now.  But I’m happy. 

            “You don’t care about me,” she says. 

            “I know.”  I’m not smiling but this is what I want. 

            She’s falling swimming in a blurred fuzzy fury.  She’s tearing the papers frantically, as I falter again. 

            This is what I want. 

            “Say it with me,” she says.  “You don’t know me, you don’t own me, you don’t know me.” 

            “I don’t know you don’t know you don’t own you…” my voice is echoing.  I’m faltering.  I’m fading. 

            “care I don’t care I don’t care I don’t—”

            The letters scatter about my feet and my face and there I am on the bus to Washington DC and there I am sitting next to Kyla.  Now I’m complimenting her outfit, now she’s asking me to write my name on our group project now I’m tired now I’m falling now I’m--

            She’s back in the sixth grade and from her finger tips fall petals; She’s thinking it because she dare not say it aloud, crouching behind the wilted bush where they found the dead bunny that once.  She thinking it as hard as she can, willing it, like those stories she would tell, those songs she would sing, and those letters she would write, under the covers, in the dark, late at night. 

            He loves me, he loves me not he loves me he loves me not he loves—

            2 petals left. 

            She tears the last two petals from their home and steps on them, saying, as if a dogma.  A vow.  A reality. 

            “me.  He loves me.” 

            And then I fall, into the letters, asleep and in their comfort.