Drink to me, drink to my health

Ed Sheeran once said, “The club isn't the best place to find a lover, so the bar is where i go,”; but i haven't had much luck with either. or anything, really.

i have this vision, ever so clear, in my mind—

of a boy (i want to make him mine).

scruffy hair, bushy brows.

kind eyes. a very greek nose.

his smile a mirror of the way the earth tilts, ever so gentle. my charming man. but he only exists on a slice of stretched-out cotton. every detail of his i have painted lovingly, the brushstrokes merging into each other as if they're lovers' tears meeting after a War. ever so careful. not lazy as i usually am, flitting around with my makeshift palette and the painting evolving as i go. when the paint dries, dare i touch it with my fingertips? he looks at me with his soft gaze. i see him blink slowly out of the corner of my eye, just when he thinks i'm not looking.

—

his hands have moved from where i painted them, curling up to embrace me. i fear i am losing my mind. but i dare not show him to anybody else— what if they are too enraptured by his beauty? another day passes and his first button has come undone. the start of a trail of chest hair teases me from under the translucent white linen. his fingers look mischievous. does he know what he is doing to me?

—

another button has popped off the damned shirt. i clutch my face in despair with one hand and a paintbrush in the other. i have let this go on too long now. enough… enough! i cannot let a collection of strokes make a fool of me in this way. slap, slap, slap some paint on his hands, his winking eyes, his now exposed upper chest. his smile seems to shrink right in front of me.

—

it has been five days since i have crafted the bane of my existence. he doesn't let me sleep, barely lets me eat, and forget about my peace of mind. he MUST exist somewhere beyond two dimensions. he simply must. oh, and the efforts i had made yesterday to undo his trickery have been in vain. he is back with his smirk, the shirt now almost entirely open, his hands behind his back so i can admire his front undisturbed. i fear for myself.

—

on the sixth day, you move unflinchingly in front of me. six days it took God to create the world as we know it. and you are my world now. i think of nothing else. i wish you didn't consume me as you do. it makes me feel so powerless. you reach out, beyond the restraints of the canvas, and you tap my nose cheerily, ignoring the state of shock i have retreated into. “yes, i'm alive,” you say, when my eyes pose the obvious question. you are larger than life. larger than any other tangible thing. i did not paint a personality to match your face, but you seem to have come with one. a BOGO offer from the Heavens above. also, i am DEFINITELY insane. or in the midst of a cruel dream.

—

last night, you had stepped out of your little world of blues and greens and joined me in my bed. every minute i have spent without you has been a minute wasted.

—

the world falls apart slowly and so do i. at your every touch i unravel slowly, as if i were a silkworm's cocoon, at the gentle hands of a seasoned sericulturist. every second i anticipate that you are about to evaporate, diminish, and you don't. seconds pass, minutes, hours, and you don't, and it is the best thing that has happened to me in a while now.

—

i want to take you outside with me. bend down to sniff the roses in rows in full bloom. ride our bikes haphazardly along the beaten-up cycling track, barely missing each others' wheels, having several near—death experiences. but you have to stay within the confines of this house, as we found out yesterday. you were made here, after all. you cannot leave. and i cannot leave you.

my paints are fading as time passes by. time— such a stranger to us all. passes us by each day and never even says hello. and you are fading with them. your smile bright as ever, it lights up my attic where the canvas, an abandoned home, is now propped up. it lights up my insides. when you kiss me, i feel merely a brush against my cold and yearning lips. your once an iron grip on my waist has been reduced to a brittle contact between skins. i am at a loss.

—

when you are fully gone, i expect all evidence of your ever existing to go with you. but the dent next to me stays on the crumpled linen sheets; the scent of your sweat lingers and pounces on me when i turn a corner; and when i get my legs entangled in between the bedcovers, i still feel as if i am in between yours instead. the canvas mocks me each time i dare look at it. you are never there. are you perhaps out of the frame? smiling your gorgeous worldly smile at other people? i will never know.

—

in the process of painting, i had made an error— a barely noticeable one, but an error nonetheless. seasoned artists swear by one rule— never to use black straight out of the tube, for it makes your art look lifeless. but your hair was the purest black i had known then. the vision in my mind ever so clear. it made no sense to tarnish it by diluting it with lesser colors. a slip of stroke, one moment of confusion, and there it was— a narrow piece of hair stuck out of the otherwise relatively ordered hairdo and bent down over your forehead, tickling your lashes. ah, well. everybody makes mistakes, i'd thought back then, moving on. it was an imperfection and nothing more. but i had grown to love it the most about you. twirling it around my finger made you laugh.

— fin —