Anca Dunavete

I had a crush on your mind since I first walked through your doors, all marked Private. I liked what I found inside and didn’t think twice about the signs. I looked around hungrily, imagined changing the locks, pulling out the Welcome Home mat, and maybe cleaning up that corner… How did this happen? It’s simple, baby. I fell in love, hard and fast, at a time when I would have eaten love raw and off the floor, had I seen it.

And there you were, coming for me. You made me feel wanted when I wanted nothing more. You opened up a little, and I thought it was a lot. You had gentle manners and rough edges, and you showed me the world as I’d never seen it before. I soaked it all up with the greed and thirst of someone who had never been on the sunny side of life before.

And no wonder, for you turned on the light, and turned on the light, and turned on the light. You just made everything so much brighter. My eyes were burning, but I was fascinated. I wasn’t sure if it meant anything, sure. But it was something, and something was so much better than nothing that, after a while, it just had to be everything. I wanted to play, too. I had never played with this much light before.

I wanted to turn the saturation all the way up until all I saw was colour, until the colour hurt my eyes, until I couldn’t look away. I never wanted to look away again. My mind was on fire, slowly burning away all the sweet nothingness before you, making way for the new memories in the making.

And my heart – oh, my heart. A fireball that rolled dangerously in your direction, throwing off sparks they called young love. How I loved to see what it could do. Didn’t you?

✦

You didn’t. You tried to warn me when you saw it coming, but by then, it was coming in full force. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even really listen. I just nodded in your direction and let my flames grow bigger as you smiled back. You see, baby, I liked your strength, your roughness, and your darkness. I liked your focus, your presence, and your intensity. I liked the way you wanted things, went for them, and got them. I liked how I was one of them.

I liked how much you wanted me, for a split second in time. How close it felt to infinity. How close I felt to infinity. How close you felt. There was nothing I liked more. I never questioned why you were warning me. I just thought you’d have more to show me, and I was keen to see it all. I only missed the essential.

You came and went in episodes, but the moments in between held nothing worth keeping – so I forgot it all, as if it had never even happened. This new, vibrant side of life with you was the only thing in focus, and I breathed it in like the world was running out of air.

When you weren’t around, waking up was just for diving into daydreams that would never happen, though I didn’t know it when everything seemed on the very edge of happening. I have no other memories of those days; they just blur in the background.

Chilly autumn evenings with you, lattes and limos in cosy cafés with you, the special look in your eyes (a kind of heaviness), my heart skipping so many happy beats. You, you, you. Day, night, day, night, day, night. August, December, April…

✦

The world is back to the way it was before you, bland and colourless. I’d imagine what things would look like if they were still illuminated, but I can’t. The sparks inside me have gone out, and the rest of me has fallen quiet. I don’t know where to get all the light you had inside you. I didn’t have enough time with you to figure it all out.

I’m struggling with the voice, too. I can’t brighten up a room, and I have nothing to say to it either. I wonder how you did it. I don’t think you know, to be honest. You never mentioned it and seemed surprised by the idea. Sometimes I’m not even sure it was you who did it. I had this crazy thought once that maybe it was all me.

Maybe I had never seen myself on fire before, and I didn’t know what it looked like. Maybe my happiness burns so bright that it made you glow – and I was only looking at you. Maybe my enthusiasm burns so brightly that it eventually sets the world on fire. I have no clue; they’re all just maybes.

When it gets really dark, I try to remember how I saw the world when you were in it with me, but the memories are starting to fade into the background, mingling with everything else that was lost, forgotten, or never quite noticed. I know what this means. I know that, soon enough, I’ll struggle to remember your face. Your voice. You.

One day they’ll come to me and I’ll need a moment to know where they’re from. They’ll have lived so long in my memory box that they’ll have lost their shine and smell of newness. But only then will I be able to look at them, play with them, and turn them into the fire that – maybe – I am. (Now I am not, I know.)

Now I have to gently let them go, close my eyes, and wait for the fog to clear, the world to come back into focus, and the sun to rise again, from – maybe – inside me.