someday

Someday
by Rhysenn

I sometimes wonder why I even bother.

I watch you from across the room, where a few steps away seems too far to reach, as if we were on a different dimension, another wavelength altogether. Your eyes are lowered, framing you with an expression of serenity and oblivion, and I keep watching you, gazing across the distance between us that is both seen and felt.

You don't see me. You never have.

I bite my lip, lost in thought and feelings and you, looking at your slightly bowed head and imagining the colour of your eyes, pure and vivid in my mind like the whisper of your smile, transient and unforgettable.

Sometimes I think we're too different.

Other times I try to believe there's a chance.

And in between I don't know what to think at all.

I spend an inordinate amount of time like this, watching you as you look elsewhere, watching you not notice me. I find it strangely comforting, though, because I can look at you without you looking back, without having to see the composed nothingness in your eyes.

You suddenly look up, your clear eyes flickering sharply in my direction before I can flinch away, and I don't. You look straight at me, an expression of knowing and understanding in your eyes and I hold my breath, waiting...

The fleeting emotion dissolves as quickly as it had flared, shuttering up within the depths of your eyes, unreadable, lost. The familiar aloofness returns.

And I ask myself why I even bother, when you're there and I'm here and between us lies a chasm of uncertain chances bridged by nothing except the thought of you and my fear to let go.

Deep inside I know no answer.

Maybe someday we'll meet each other's gaze and not look away. If you take a step forward I won't move back.

But now all I feel is a shiver running up my spine as your eyes cross mine, before the space of a heartbeat rushes by like a thundering breath and you turn away, everything else fluttering back into place in the wake of your lingering gaze.

Someday.