I’ve heard that eskimos kisses by rubbing there noses together, you say, you’re eyes hazy from too much alcohol and too little sleep but still locked on me

I Like You

“I’ve heard that eskimos kiss by rubbing their noses together”, you say with eyes hazy from too much alcohol and too little sleep, and it’s almost scary how blue they are in the dim light. It’s four am or something along the likes of that and we’re outside, but I can still hear the music playing from inside what’s-her-names house. The volume inside was too loud, almost deafening, so we escaped out here. Well, I escaped and you followed…

Awkwardly I lean against the fence, it was once white, now the colours so chipped that the original green colour shines trough, I notice this simply because I don’t know what to answer. I’m wide eyed and I know it, sober as the day I was born and my head is completely cleared from the smoke inside thanks to the cold here outside. My cheeks go red and I can’t tell if it’s because of the chill wind or because of you. I’m shivering in my thin sweater, but you don’t seem to be affected at all even though you’re just wearing a t-shirt.

It’s light blue and looks all soft, the hems are a darker shade of blue, almost marine, and I guess I don’t even have to mention the way it brings out your eyes. Your jeans fit loosely around your thin hips, pooling around your feet, and I smile at the pink laces in your shoes. By now I know it’s time to answer, if it ever was a question to start with?

But I can’t bring myself to it, yeah maybe they kiss that way, but I want something a little closer, a little warmer, a little tighter, a little more… you. With that I blush and fiddle-fumble with my fingers. “Yeah” I mumble and stare at the yellowing patch of grass right before you.

“This party kind of sucked, you know” you say, breaking the silence so easy. I envy that easiness, yes. You look at me like you expect another answer, rubbing the side of your head in an awkward cute way that makes my world go a little unsteady. It makes me want to reach out and flatten, no tangle your dark brown hair. Wrap it around my fingers and mess it up. Press my body into yours and hide away. The heath that rises inside almost scares me; it’s so intense, filled with so much wanting, needing and craving.

We both smile and suddenly the tension is gone, something with a very nice bass line starts to play inside and I nod my head along with the beat. You watch and reach for the pack of smokes in your pocket. I follow your movements not so secretly, and the heath inside turns into simple happiness. It’s pretty the way your long fingers hold the packet; it’s even pretty the way you smoke.

You make an effort not to blow smoke at me because you know I don’t like it, but the truth is, when it’s your smoke it doesn’t matter. Because in that smoke there’s small, small particles of you and if I try real hard I think I could taste you, so I breath in deep. Looking for something sweet, but not sickening, something spicy but at the same time safe, something that I know would feel like home.

I wonder how you kiss, what that’d taste like but right now I guess you’d just taste like smoke, and with that I start coughing. Maybe I breathed in a little too deep? You watch me from underneath a few strands of dark hair as I regain myself from coughing so hard. I wonder if you see the fire in my eyes. You step on what’s left of the cigarette, and I watch your worn shoe squash it down in the grass, making sure it doesn’t burn. I’d like a fire right now, a big, red, burning fire.

I’d stick my hands into that fire. I’d watch them burn, I’d choke on the stench and I’d scream because of the pain. Maybe then you’d react, maybe then you’d pull me close, maybe then you’d know that sometimes friends just aren’t enough; sometimes one of us wants more. Maybe for once you’d do something more then looking.

… maybe for once I should do something?

So with that I take a tiny step forward. A few centimetres, a few inches, but for me it’s like jumping blindfolded into the unknown. Even though it’s cold I wish I was barefoot so I could feel the grass beneath my feet. If it tickled me, maybe smiling would be a little easier? Stepping closer stole my breath, and now I’m pale as death. Pink blush on my cheeks must be standing out, and I know my make-up is a little smudged, lines of black not as straight as they should be anymore, lashes a little clumped… but does that matter in the long term? Does it matter that I’ll never be as perfect as I think you want me to?

Does it matter that I’m not as thin as the girls on the cover of Seventeen, does it matter that my complexion has its shares of breakouts, does it matter that my hair never stay the way I want it to, does it matter that I wake every morning with panda eyes because the night before I was too lazy to wash my makeup of, does it matter that I like to sing even though I can’t, does it matter that I’d like to watch you sleep, does it matter that I like mornings more then evenings, does it matter that darkness doesn’t scare me and does it matter that I really, really like-love you?

Does it matter if I do like this?

It’s like a scene you see in one of those romantic silly films, girl and boy and a hazy shade of winter backing them you. Slowly getting closer, fingers playing, shy glances that speaks for them selves. “I like you” they say, but the always mumble so it’s hard to hear. This is the same; the only difference is that this time the actors have flaws and they keep on forgetting their lines or messing them up, The music doesn’t fit the scene, it’s loud and obnoxious and the beat screams for faster movement. But some things can’t be rushed, some things go slow… and sometimes friends are meant just to be friends, even if it hurts, even if it feels like it kills you, even if it makes everything so awkward when you take that step, that step who’s supposed to end with him liking you back. A picture perfect ending. There is no screenplay for what you do when he backs away and holds your fumbling hands down… there’s nothing left to do but blush and walk away.

That’s what I do, the world around me turns into a blur of late-night-early-morning colours, it’s so silent when I escape. It’s my breathing – hitching for every step I take, it’s my sobs and your footsteps behind me, the only sounds I hear, the only noise I need.