48. sweet as lemon sorbet

half my life, i’m freefalling, the other half – looking back on the sights i’ve seen in those few moments before my parachute opened, before the maddening rush of adrenaline was curbed by my safety net, the soft fabric above me saving me.
you are that fabric – the fabric of my life spun by the yarn of your love, by the generosity of those hands turning the spindle. 
all because you feel responsible for me. or maybe not.

in the end, my life’s my life: a merger of past faces, names, soft hands that once caressed my skin or longed to do so.
and you.
the thread of you’s the thread of me. and i want everyone you know to love me, unbearably, exquisitely so that you know the worth of love. so that you can count broken smiles knowing something inside them breaks for me.

an only child, i knew how to be painfully selfish. i learnt it well, my only teacher – solitude and parents’ love. but here i am, sister in tow, and still that only child rhetoric lives on in me. so once in a while, i feel in need of broken dreams of others to see my hope reflected in those pieces of looking-glass.

and if you can’t blame me who can blame me?
my friend once told me i was cruel to boys, to men, male counterparts. that i was cruel because my skattered gazes never solidified, my touch was soft but vapid, my hands gentle but uncaring. so what? i said it’s my revenge. 

and so it is.
as sweet as lemon sorbet melting on my lips.

another door.

fighting to open a door beyond your reach,
just to glimpse the universe beyond
those metal locks
and what you see through the keyhole is not enough;
just vague hint of indifferent smiles
behind the rose-tinted glass of politics 

there will be another door.
another shade of gray. 

just not today.

20. i’m no mad doll, just a run-of-the-mill one

yesterday marked five months since the day i became X’s girlfriend.
on paper at least.
and it’s kind of scary in some strange way how long that is. for me, in any case.

it was just like any other day.
we didn’t even speak on the phone: he didn’t call and i had other people to speak to. i may be dependent, but i’m a free woman, or rather girl, still. and the funny thing is, i don’t think he even realised how frustrated and trapped i was feeling until this morning, when i decided that our anniversary (or in the very least, the day following it) ought to go out with a bang.

i had a perfect excuse, not that i really needed one, but hey. he was meeting up with a girl who blatantly likes him, behind my back. and when i say likes him, i mean likes him a lot.

she never told me that she did, but it’s evident. not just to me, to others too, and you know that. you were the one who suggested it in the first place. 
she talks about him, like he’s her boyfriend and not mine. and that’s alright. i don’t mind.

in fact, generally, i’d welcome such turn of events, ignore it or maybe gossip about it for a bit, but today i felt like drama. and not just any drama, but a argintinian-style melodrama, where every nuance is outrageous, where shock is everything and truth is nothing.

and that’s what i always wanted my life to be like, ever since i watched “Wild Angel”, or rather “Muñeca Brava”. i wanted to transform into that fearless heroine, that mad doll who’d always get what she wanted, no matter the cost. who actually knew what she wanted. who knew how to live.

but i realise i’m no mad doll, just a run-of-the-mill one, trying to be unique. still, what does it matter?
for a moment in my life, albeit a fairly brief one, i thought it counted who you were, but it doesn’t really. what matters is how well you can pretend you’re something you’re not. and i do that well.
a million different smiles, looks, mannerisms.

and so we fought. bitter words. silent anger coursing through viens. his. mine. 
but i know before the night falls, he’ll want to be in my arms again and i resent that fact. 

i resent resenting him and resenting me.
but that’s the way it’s gonna be.