The Quiet Things That No One Ever Knows

Dark. It's dark, and time has stopped. It hasn't slowed, it hasn't sped up, it's frozen. It's frozen, and I can't move. I can't speak. I can't force a sound out of my immobile mouth, I can't register yet that what has happened has happened. And you’re standing there, so coy, so beautifully unattainable; with your smirk and the way your cocky hands have slipped into your trousers so casually.

“So that’s it then. It’s over.” I can hear the tears in my own voice, but, if you can as well, you disregard them.

“Looks like it.” Your voice, like a honeyed spider web, entrancing victims with the sweet seduction of the unknown. I hate you in this moment. I might hate you forever. I might cry angry tears at the mention of your name for the rest of my time on this earth, or perhaps just become a hollow ghost when you pass by, void of emotion and feelings. I could carry on as normal, my rebellion so quiet, so, so quiet and blissful that you will never notice…. “So….see you around?”

“S’pose.”

You don’t fight, you walk away. You walk strong and smoothly, no shaky steps, no speeding up, no slowing down…as if it were any other night. As if you would return. And I stand on my porch with the light buzzing faintly and slowly dimming out as the bulb burns, and my eyes bore holes in your back, praying to God that you give some sort of acknowledgement of my ever continuing presence.

I wait for you to turn around, to look back, to whisper my name when you think that I can’t hear, to show some sign of weakness or pain, but instead you just keep walking steadily away as I stand in the cold night until you’ve been swallowed by the night, and only then do I start to cry…