Melodrama

They say you never forget your first love. For me, at least, it rings true. In certain lights, I think of him. The glare of midsummer’s light brings the memories rushing back; when the sun rains down gold, Midas’ fingers tracing shapes on the ground, spreading like wildfire. It’s hard not to. A song running around in your head, ghosts of him lingering on you, hearing his voice in the wind – when you turn and look, nothing. Even now, I find it funny how someone who effortlessly lights a room could vanish from my sight so easily.

I still remember walking in. My first party in what had been years; not-so-fashionably late in a foreign street and an even stranger house. My eyes flickered to him immediately, drawn like a magnet, the red string of fate tangled between us. But when our eyes met, those sapphire stars glimmering with his youthful brilliance, all the knots seemed to unfurl. Something between us, tension that hung in the air like a spell, bewitching me in his charms. A cocky smile, his playful winks – a hand that got too close for comfort, but we both laughed it off. For a brief and regretful moment, I forget him, and I turn away.

But then he’s there again. Never out of my mind for long, and even rarer out of my sight. A strong grip hooks me around the waist, keeping me close to him. I feel the warmth of his body pressed up against me as he pays me no mind – happily chatting on the phone while holding on to me like a memory. I tried to get away, laughing all the while. He pulls me back in again, catches me without a hint of trouble in a clumsy dance. Then, he lifts me up – my mind soars as my face lights up, giggling like a hopeless teenager. I’m as light as a feather when he holds me, my worries are gone, nothing but his surprising strength and the joy his fingers against my skin brings.

I orbit him as if he is a star. I tend to his every need as he playfully jabs me, remarking on my status as “his assistant”. He makes the closest thing he ever has to a promise to me then– when he gets older and becomes a rich businessman, I’ll be his assistant, bringing him coffee every morning. The idea of a future together almost makes me spill his drink. I remind him of his girlfriend – he says nothing. Tentatively, I ask him how much he’s had. “Not that much,” he says with remarkable clarity.

I once thought of him as a courageous lion who lead the pride with his on the line. Yet when I think of him now, I see nothing but a lost kitten, scared and confused, seeking refuge. Faith in me that I feel I must nurture. He dodges it like a skittish little child, jumping at the shadows he could vanquish if he would just shine as brightly as he does when he smiles, or when I look at him. He holds on to me, clutches at me like a lifeline. He holds my mind – easing my ailing, setting my panicked thoughts at ease. He says I’m a friend yet holds me closer. Like an enemy.

I see in him the brilliance of a thousand suns, the magnificence of stars in his eyes, all the atypical grace and poise bristling in him. There is a fabricated tenderness in his unnatural gentleness. It flows from me like a fountain, and he is a crude mockery, flickering like shadows on a wall, cast by his own glimmering brilliance. It’s like watching a baby learn to walk, lurching forward, tripping over themselves. Looking with bated breath whilst he stumbles his way through the world. In watching him, I see myself. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery.

Where he has strength, I have grace. Wisdom where he has knowledge; I doubt he could match wits with me, though it’s adorable when he tries. I am the moon, the calm hiding a storm, introspective and quiet. He loathes it like the plague; flinches at the solemn sound of a piano’s soft keys, where I find peace. He seems afraid to dive deeper than his own skin, look beyond the radiance of his flesh to find treasure, throw himself into the scorching molten gold like lava, drown in it, to be consumed by it. Life is a beautiful rose, and he avoids the thorns out of fear. I worry he will never know the secrets they hold; that when it blooms, he will be too caught up by the rush of joy, or the scorching heat of summer’s limited bounty.

He seems to delude himself with visions of grandeur. I feel myself buy into them, yet like sugar too sweet, they are sickly. Every time he learns more about me, his eyes widen in surprise and intrigue. He realizes I am more than the read he has of me; I can sense his intrigue. I bend to his will like the shores to the moon, offering him glimpses of the pearls I hold, and I see his eyes twinkle with joy. Yet when the final words drop from my lips, I see him retract back into himself when he turns away from me. A snide joke meant to ignore the weight of the world hanging between us. He finds the pressure suffocating; I know it is how diamonds form. I want to reach out, to drag him deep into the seas of life, teach him how to swim and drink in the vivid waters of nature. But I understand all too well his fears and the pain it takes to overcome them. I must slowly guide him into the waters, and only when he plunges in with utter faith in me, can we swim freely.

For now, he must wade in, step by step. Patience is not one of my virtues. While my love never once wavers, I feel my mind snap and break. I am teaching the blind to see, showing him the colours of the world that once eluded me. Though I ache to teach and share, the tides and waves of fate pull at me, dragging me away. I cannot wait forever.

We are different, him and I. I am the moon, glimmering in his radiance, truly alive when he is there with me. Cold and distant, looming far away, slipping from the reaches of his light. I forget all of this when I touch him. When he leans against me, he rests his head on my shoulder. I realize then, I do not forget. I burn brighter not in blissful ignorance of the end, but of acute awareness: I shine brilliantly to mock the dim demise we march to. In defiance of the darkness we become.

I know him by the way his breath hitches when he laughs. The way he walks, scuffles forward, then checks himself and adjusts; the crown of masculinity is a size too small and unnatural on his head. The soft tenderness of his skin and his warmth, the azure depths of his eyes as infinite as the sky, or the rays of sunlight falling like feathers atop his head. Even with all my senses gone, the world eradicated in fire, I know him. I remember my fears vanishing like the clouds in the sky when dawn breaks, held tenderly in the golden safety of his arms. As always, he drags me from my own thoughts, and I am aware of us in painful detail. He is getting up, running from me again. He is a man of restraint and prevents his indulgences from ruling him.

I say I’ll call him when the party’s over.

I don’t.