Member-only story
I Lose Myself In Ideas of Love
Prose Poetry
Maybe I don’t know the language of what’s happening between us — when your eyes meet mine and my heart starts to trip over itself. Then your gaze skitters away as a smile tugs at your mouth, and I feel like quite the fool as you walk away holding hands with someone else.
Maybe I don’t know the way to track when what-if translates into can-be. You’re just inches away, and I could reach out and grab you by the sleeve. But then you slip out of my fingers, just like that, as if you were never so close in the first place.
Maybe I don’t know how to string together the proper phrases to lure you into my orbit. My words stumble over themselves in their slow pursuit of you, and you laugh as if I’m the cutest thing. But you still end up retreating, back off to your friends who recognize the cues of this thing that feels like such a petty game.
Maybe I don’t know the path towards your heart because it’s just too easy to give up. Why try to unlock a box when the key’s missing? I can’t conjure up a magical resolution that’ll mean the result of you plus me. And so I’m left with the answer of me minus you.
Maybe I don’t know how to voice the spell that will tie you to me. Stay. But no, I won’t do it because I’m just lost in the idea of what something like love might mean with someone…
