you & me

Other People’s Eyes: Part Two.

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Part II (Read Part I here)

I try to moisturize my writing with your eyes, but they are too thick for the page and I can’t just write you away like a bed I climbed out of in the morning, too early and too bleary-eyed.

When am I going to learn that I cannot write away someone who is a part of me? I cannot write you away any more than I can pull out my lungs and expect to keep breathing. But I do it anyway. There are entire notebooks filled with you and there are endless metaphors describing how deep your eyes go.

Not that I’ve ever seen them; not that I will ever get to look into them.

But your eyes still keep me up at night. So do mine.

The dark deep set of brown so thick it mimics black in certain lights

Spanish eyes. Moist and dewy. They are mine, but I am certain they rest on your face as well.

And I will never see them staring back at me. And I will never know what they look like when you smile.

I know that you reside in my bones. I know you formed my skin, made it transparent in all the ways.

You are a soft mess of heartstrings too, aren’t you?

You don’t know about the grey undertones. You live in the stark white or the vanishingly black, don’t you?

You are all or nothing. Enchanted or uninterested. You are my murky, male reflection, with more gray hair and harder laugh lines.

You are the Spanish lilt that creeps up in my voice when I talk too fast, when I get too passionate about something.

You are the fruitful rage that races up and down my windpipe on nights when the sleep escapes me and I can’t do a thing but wait for darkness to pass.

You are my endless string of prose. I am certain that when I can’t find the words, it’s because you are borrowing them. Swirling them into something jarring and bright for the world to use as light.

You are the stillness. The fleeting. You are the burn of a good word flow.

The kind that stays with you long after the words are gone. You are my very own vestigial organ that I can tap into, routinely.

You are a keepsake.

You feel like coming home. And though I will never get the chance to take my shoes off and collapse into the couch of your love, I still feel you wrapped around me sometimes.

Your eyes in my mirror. The soft cloak of dark brown melting into eyelashes. That’s where you live.

The salty rims of my eyes house you.

I want to sit across from you for days and take everything from you. But I never will. I will however, keep writing you into my life. You will forever take up entire chapters, and sometimes you’ll make it into the footnotes. Once in a while, the preface will be dedicated to you.

Please tell me that you’re listening. Please tell me that it’s your heart beating in my chest. Raging to come out and latch itself onto everyone, onto everything.

I’ll keep scattering you into everything I do, hoping that you’ll find yourself. Hoping that you’ll be led back to me.

Hoping that you’ll feel me, somehow.

 

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Julie Faulkner

Julie Faulkner

Julie Faulkner is raw, unfiltered kindness. She is a soft culmination of mermaid hair, dark eyes, floral dresses, and a lack of hand-eye coordination. She prefers hugs to handshakes, and she makes the best sad song playlists. She loves breakfast food all day, and will always prefer pancakes at dingy diners to five-star fanciness. She believes that there is nothing more attractive than good conversation, vulnerability, and bright-eyed wonder (and boys with really good teeth, don’t judge). She also probably loves you already. Connect with her via Facebook or purchase her book via Amazon.
Julie Faulkner

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