My cold fingers press desperately into my eyes. Slits of light shine threw my clasped eyelids as I stare out into the dark, abyss of a world. It’s selective. It’s right. I’m wrong. My one vice on reality was hiding.
I don’t want to be here.
My heart thumps wildly inside my small chest. It wants out. It doesn’t like feeling this way. It doesn’t like what is going on behind my makeshift curtain of shaky fingers. The thoughts churning in my head dance around as though on a bed of hot coals. They flash the truth brightly, yet I still cling to lies. I cling to hope.
The tingling sensation at the bottom of my stomach, and even the one a little lower, is telling my brain to shut it— begging to be appeased. I am human. Only human.
Yet I know. I know. I do! I know how this will end. As the hours of the night slide between our entwined fingers, as they melt around our curled bodies, I will only be getting closer to the inevitable. But I need this. I stay and wait patiently, while my hands cover my eyes begging for me not to be here. I am stuck between two pulling ropes, though they pull equally and I remain still. Even in my cloud I question whether or not I should be hiding, whether or not I should be hiding.
I love this. I hate this…. I want this. I wait behind my cloud.
*******
Clouds are the best at hiding and concealing and pretending. They don’t care how bright, or even how dull what they cover up is, they just consume it from our eyes. They take the unwanted away. Things are simple this way. They are the best things in the world this way. Grey. It is all that matters, no worries of color, just a mixing of the simplest things: black and white; good and bad. Everything cancels out and you have grey. You have clouds. You have apathy and indifference and simplicity.
*******
I hear the bathroom door open and the soft, gentle footsteps press into the shaggy carpet and make quiet creaking sounds that will lay forgotten in the night’s ear. My hands dart quickly away from my face. I hope he didn’t notice. I don’t want to seem weird. I think he thinks I am.
I will my eyes open to find him standing at the bottom of the bed, smiling graciously, knowingly, as he climbs beside me. I turn over and face him, look into his ocean blue eyes. They wash over me, soothe me. I let a slow breathe out, the one I had been holding for what seemed like forever.
His brown hair curls outward, a skater look, though intelligent as well. I could love him. His soft freckles, his dimpled chin, his tiny, perfect nose. I could. But I know he wouldn’t want me to, I know this is not why I am here. Not to feel, rather opposite. We are both masters are pretending, at evading.
I am falling into the ocean. Into his open arms where I cannot remember what is real and what is fake. Time slips away in his bare arms. Worries melt like ice on a fevered child’s head. He is my ice. Though I am not positive being cold is best, just numbing. I like being numb. I like not thinking. I like not caring. I like being here.
******
Smoke curls dangerously around us. The stars smile down on us. It seems right. We dance on the dirt road, make careless circles around reality, daring it to bite back. I smile into his lips, he smiles back. I forget to be careful and feel happy. I feel on top of the world. I feel I could do anything with his arms around me. But that is never enough.
I want to stare into his eyes forever. Or perhaps sit in his arms. But he presses more, he dares me more, I say no. I plead no. But then…
I give in. I give up. Always, I climb behind my cloud.
I climb behind my cloud. Under the covers. Behind the truth. He pulls me closer to him.
I know I want this. I know I don’t. I don’t know what I want anymore. I am human. Only human. He doesn’t like me, he just uses me. I want him to, I think he does. Sometimes I know he does. But he doesn’t… hope is fake. Maybe. I don’t know what is real or fake behind my cloud.
******
After… I just need to be numb. Just need to let the world go. Like covering my eyes from the world, I was so good at that. I was so good at being behind a cloud—at pretending.
I stumble into the bathroom, the floor creaking beneath my wary feet, I look into the mirror. A girl with long, brown, curly hair stares back at me. Her face is pale, her lips cracked and thin. Her hair looks dull and frizzy from not being taken care of, her face is ugly. She was once beautiful, I remember, but now she is ugly. She is lost. She is broken.
She isn’t me.
I look around me. I feel sick. I am drowning. The cloud begins to dissipate and I can’t handle the truth, I can’t handle reality.
I am running suddenly, the lies behind me. Just running and running and not looking back, the cold night air is biting at my skin, the moon is pushing me back, and the clouds are pushing me back, but I run forward. I run until I can’t run anymore. Until my chest heaves so heavily, my throat and lungs burn so much, that I can’t see straight.
I don’t care…
I care.
I think I care because I don’t care and I know this is all not right. I can’t hide. Because that girl I am when I do isn’t me.