noted things

        I meant to write this last night when our interaction left me heartbroken in ways I should have predicted. I’m not sure how many more times I can withstand all the times you break me down just to build me up again. I’ve already told you how my friends are my family, a love I expressed so sincerely that you called me an angel. I shook my head, vehemently, because I’ve never been described as someone remotely seraphic or even innocent before.

        “It’s not that I’m that good of a person,” I said, “It’s that they’re all that incredible.”

        I can’t believe how lucky I am to live with the love that I’ve found, to know that I am unconditionally understood when my own blood bullies me into believing I’m badly blemished. But you stare at me with this look in your eyes, like you can’t believe the love that you’ve found, and I never return your gaze or glance at the mirror behind you because I’m afraid to see what’s written on my face in response.

        Every time I’m convinced I know how you feel about me and choose to be braver to compensate for the courage you lack, or keep stifled with a self-control I can’t seem to access, you suddenly grow cold and speak to me in a way that makes me feel uncertain. I know you well enough to have moved past my former stage of insecurity, but I hate this awkward two-step you’ve caught me in when you know full-well I can’t dance. I take a couple steps forward, you take three steps back. I respond accordingly, after lengthy talks with myself to give you up, when you pull me closer until my resolve crumbles and I’m left relying on your grip to stand.

        My friends, who are forever rooting for me to find love, would hate you interminably for what you said the other day. They’re left in puzzled anticipation, inquiring daily, “So what happens next?”

        I shrug coyly, but the truth is that my response is a calculated silence because I don’t want them to stop rooting for you. I can’t come to a conclusion about whether the cold persona you revert to is a rare glimpse of the real you or if the man that observes me so intently is who you really are. I hesitantly opened up to you about the traumatic experience I had in the taxi when I was convinced the driver had bad intentions and I prayed with the entirety of my being for the heavens to alter my fate. My whole body trembled as I relived my ordeal and I was shocked to see you didn’t take me seriously at all. You assessed the situation too pragmatically, mansplaining that my instincts had misled me to believe in a bigger danger and advising that I avoid unsavory situations by heading home before dawn.

        Then you said, “You shouldn’t feel afraid – if you ever fall victim to unwarranted advances, all you have to do is pull up your sleeves to reveal your tattoos and scare them off.”

        My ears rang with your words for the rest of the day, well into the night, and echoed in the dawn of the following morning. I felt too numb to feel hurt, instead feeling like I had finally received the answer I was too afraid to seek. I’ve always wondered about your perception of me – you’re someone so wholesome and unblemished while I wear my heart and my scars and my stories on my sleeve for everyone to see. My family members insist that my ink is a revelation of my lack of self-love, that each new piece is a form of mutilation because I hate myself so much. I wondered if that’s how you view me too, especially when you asked if I don’t regret the fact that I’ll never see the skin beneath the ink in my lifetime again.

        The truth is, my tattoos are a form of armor, so I can’t disagree with the tactic you proposed. I’ve felt vulnerable for most of my life; objectified by the Korean practice of unfiltered criticism about my body, oversaturated with impossible standards perpetuated by glossy teen magazines, and subjected to offhanded comments by the men who’ve seen me naked – including one particularly cruel golden-eyed monster who publicly compared my flat, yellow planes to a pancake and put me off my favorite breakfast food until I realized “FUCK HIM” and ate a whole stack while half-drunk off whiskey and self-reclaimed power.

        I told you that every time I get a new piece, I feel as though I am sustaining this trajectory of self-empowerment. Each body part I so harshly criticized prior suddenly becomes beautiful when viewed in this new light; less flawed and more a vehicle lovingly adorned with art. You smiled and told me that in that case, I should never stop accumulating more pieces and I felt impossibly seen by someone who had told me just mere moments before that my skin was akin to a weapon.

        I told him what you said, partially unfiltered by painkillers and partially overwhelmed by the unending loop of repeating your callous words in my head. He listened in a way you never seem to, more receptive to my heartache than how your face visibly tightens when I share less than angelic confessions with you. He told me you must have been joking, especially when he witnessed the aftermath of my trauma in my trembling hands and took it upon himself to make sure I made it home safely every night following that incident.

        But I know you and I know you were sincere, that you shrugged off my fear as another way in which I was over-reacting or being hyper-sensitive; another trapping of the emotional woman. I stubbornly insisted, remembering how to speak in your absence, about how my fear wasn’t a joking matter nonetheless. I informed him about a terror he’s lucky enough to never experience; having been blessed with being born as a man. I spoke about how he’ll never know how it feels when all the hairs on every inch of your body is raised in high alert and your blood is screaming in your ears to get yourself the fuck out of there.

        I said, “Even if he was kidding, I don’t understand how anyone could see me shaking and decide that a joke is the appropriate way to respond.”

        I said, “Even if you think he was kidding, I don’t understand how anyone could interpret what he said as a joke when he followed up his statement with – Well, I know you so I understand your tattoos but anyone else would find them scary.”

        And even now, as I write this, I imagine how my friends would react to me falling for a person who could say something like that about me – someone so cherished and protected and fully seen by them, someone so flawlessly and fully beautiful in their eyes – How could I give my heart away to anyone who could look at me and possibly think otherwise?

        Then today, you traced your finger around the circle on my shoulder and I blushed as I had to explain the Neil Gaiman tattoo in which I had to look you in the eyes and call myself beautiful. I felt instantly vulnerable, as if my skin was unmarred and all my formidable ink had been washed away. I felt conflicted about how someone, who just days before had likened my tattoos to terrifying trenches, could instantly cross that divide to disarm me so carelessly.

        You spent the day asking about each piece in earnest, marking your progress across the map of my skin, dog-earing the pages of each story I shared with you as your eyes widened in rapt absorption. You confessed that since the day we met, you’ve had to fight the urge to ask me about each and every single one with a building curiosity that has now become impossible to suppress. I laughed and told you I have a novel written about each one and that a week would be insufficient to explain them all to you. Then we both paused, realizing that today marks exactly one week before I leave, and you said quietly: “Time goes by too quickly, doesn’t it?”

        You glanced down and saw my fists were balled when you brushed the part of my spine that’s still swollen with unresolved tension and said, almost to yourself: “I wish you weren’t in pain anymore,” almost your parting wish, almost a prayer, and I felt my heart tighten with that all-too-familiar ache that’s attributable only to you.

        You continued to press along my spine, taking inventory and asking if my swollen disc or my troublesome lower back hurt more. It became a game, “Which hurts more – your leg or your spine?” “Your right shoulder blade or your left herniated disc?” “Your back tattoo or your ruptured cyst?” “Your body or your heart?”

        How could I tell you that none of the physical ailments you handle in your hands compare to the ways in which you unwind me with your words?

        It’s so wrong how you hurt me so deeply, but I still can’t help but wish that you liked me every time the clock chimes 11:11.

        Every time I want you to care, you’re never there. But each time I lose my balance, you anticipate the fall before it happens.

        I reread everything I’ve written about you in an effort to better understand what you might be thinking, to elucidate if it’ll be a mistake to share with you how I’m feeling. I’ve uncovered an unmistakable pattern in which you draw closer when I’m full of light and laughing but whenever I make the mistake of showing you how much I’m struggling, you pull back and treat me with a kind of indifference I’m convinced couldn’t be disingenuous. I wish you would exhibit the kind of emotional concern you express over the state of my broken body; always reaching out instinctively when my weak leg buckles and I lose my footing. But you habitually retreat into yourself whenever I show any weakness, in the same way you glow with pride when I exhibit signs of strength.

        I’m not a tattooed harpy and I’m definitely no angel. It’s impossible for me to smile for you every time you see me and I find myself missing the person you used to be when I would cry openly in front of you. Your star sign proclaims you’re someone destructively overprotective but I couldn’t find that to be less true. I don’t sense any darkness in you, it’s a kind of nuance you lack having grown up in a small country town with unquestioned roots and no desire to rebel or run away or differentiate yourself from the demands of your daily existence.

        If I could separate my sea from my fire, if I could split my smiles from my tears, if I could shed my skin from my ink; it’s something I would consider doing for you. But such a stupid thought is nothing more than a fleeting contemplation – I am too wholly loved to ever consider being romanced only partially.

        You are nothing more than someone I almost loved.

        Today was the first day I felt a familiar sadness shroud my sight until the skies seemed to reflect my clouded thoughts. I’ve been doing a good job of convincing everyone I’ve been able to keep my depression at bay; despite drinking every day and smoking cigarettes compulsively again. I come home with my hair and my breath and my fingertips stubbornly stained by the stench of my sins and crawl into bed, trying to immerse myself in a fantasy that transports me to sleep the second I sell myself such tall tales and believe that where I lay half-awake is the false reality.

        Lately, this mirage hasn’t been working and I’ve been struggling with insomnia after lying to the one person who has cared to treat me like a human being this whole winter. He traced the scars on my wrists with such understanding, without a trace of the customary pity, that I didn’t flinch at his touch and instead settled into a place more comfortable than I ought to have felt with a casual stranger.

        He asks me, “Have you eaten today?” “Did you get home safe?” “Are you sure you should be drinking so much?” “You’re ok, right?”

        He wears his heart so plainly on his sleeve that my own chest collapses with the contrast of how different he is from you.

        You only ask me if I’m eating out of obligation and no amount of carefully worded inquiries can infiltrate the intentional insouciance you hide behind. You don’t care how much I drink or how I get home or if I’m eating alone. You touch me with such impassivity that I have to clench my fists to keep myself from responding disproportionately. You’re so aloof that I didn’t realize how foolish my illusions were until I stumbled across someone who likes me, unlike you.

        My heart aches in acknowledgement about how apathetic I feel towards someone who cares about me so sincerely; suddenly sympmathizing with how you must feel when your hands graze mine and I retract with a startle while you stare in inquiring incomprehension. I realize now that I have absolutely no effect on you; in the same way he ran his fingers along my wrists and brushed the cigarette ash off my shoulders and I just pulled my coat tighter around myself without a second thought of our interaction.

        Today was a difficult day in which the daily dreams I endeavor to exist within were all too transparently an illusion and the smiles I always shower you with felt too insincere to sustain.

        I allowed myself to be honest about how hard it’s been; wanting you to ask, “Have you eaten? “Did you get home safe?”

        You saw the undiluted despair in my eyes, telling me not to be so hard on myself, and yet didn’t bother to say – “Are you ok?”

        I couldn’t look at you without wanting to cry so I ran into the street and chainsmoked cigarettes, instantly realizing that quitting isn’t a promise I can keep, scrambling to keep my eyes from growing empty and my heart from growing hollow because that’s the most dangerous place I can be around these sleepless streets and a frameless floor to ceiling window on the twenty-third floor.

        I wandered foreign avenues aimlessly for a few hours – my eyes wide and blank, my thoughts in tandem – smoking intermittently whenever I needed a palpable reminder that I was still alive. I felt so tired and my body was in so much pain but mostly I just felt exhausted from trying this hard, thinking this much.

        It’s dark now and I’m going to bed soon and I know you know how early I sleep so I’ve officially given up on hearing from you.

        What hurts more than your indifference is knowing how instantly he would’ve responded, had he known about my bad day. He would’ve dropped everything to walk on my right as a buffer between my mindless body and the careless traffic. He would’ve lit each of my cigarettes in a pained effort at chivalry before inevitably smoking more than he should in synchrony with me. He would’ve immediately ascertained the look in my eyes and instinctively sympathized in a way that wouldn’t make me feel embarrassed or exposed. He would’ve recognized his reflection in my regret and unselfconsciously shared it in silence.

        From the first day we met, I’ve known he has his days too.

        I shared as much of myself as I could in the short seconds full of possibility between us just yesterday; presuming that by revealing it all, you’d finally be able to see me as a woman. I had so much I wanted to tell you; things I had rehearsed all night and memorized in the morning, unable to keep myself from smiling as I did my makeup in the mirror while thinking of seeing you soon.

        But when I finally saw your face, I felt so fucking stupid. What the fuck was I doing to myself, all over again, smoking cigarettes and falling in unrequited love as though I were fifteen and not almost thirty?

        I saw myself the way you do; flighty, full of excuses, overly emotional, and constantly inconsistent. I can’t believe I thought unraveling my unadulterated heartache might make you feel protective over me, rather than exasperated. I can’t believe I thought you would witness my widening eyes and palpable despair and feel something human in you. I can’t believe I waited for you to save me, for you to tell me that you’d be right there, for you to follow me outside as I lit my infinith cigarette and care enough to coerce me into quitting. I can’t believe I thought this was different from the last time, the one-sided love I nursed for six years in the same way my eyes are filled with a different version of you from the truth.

        All I wanted to was spark the static shock from your fingers when your skin makes contact with mine. I wanted to see the same thinly-veiled hunger in your eyes before you abashedly avoid my gaze. I wanted to feel the mirrored magnetism my gut masks when there’s inches between us and I have to fight to span that space with a single inappropriate step. I wanted to be more than a serial novelist spinning fairy tales out of impossible misperceptions.

        I can’t help but compare you to him; that constant perpetuation of mild interest that makes me run towards you at a mile a minute. But the second I toe the gap between you and I, it widens into an impassable chasm – you’re entertained by me, but not enough that you take me seriously.

        Eventually I’ll become nothing more than a lovelorn girl leaving you drunk voicemails at 3AM that you habitually ignore with no guilt after growing too exhausted to deal with composing emotionally-warranted responses.

        I thought it was time to open myself up to vulnerability, but I forgot I’m incapable of compartmentalizing parts of myself until it’s too late and I fall apart at the sight of your smile or your slighted silence. It’s my turn to take imperceptibly small steps backward until I’ve matched your safe distance instead of teetering on the edge alone while everyone else watches in disbelief.

        I’m tired of being a spectacle, I’m sick of being a one woman circus.

        I’m tired of being called brave because I followed through on something you were too afraid to do.

        I’ll keep myself to myself; be it saving him from heartache or protecting myself from the likes of you.

        Every time I’m foolish enough to forget, I’m reminded again and again of why I eat all my meals alone.

        I feel like I’m the only person who looks up at the sky as it rains. Everyone else around me scurries past with their hands over their heads or protected by the plastic canopy of an umbrella but I love the feeling of light drizzle misting my upturned face; nothing separating my skin from the saturated sky. The only time I felt an exception to this restorative receptivity was when you walked me up the stairs and paused beneath the eaves of the building doors. I stood; absorbing the warmth emanating between us in that narrow entrance on a rainy January afternoon, suddenly feeling grateful for this excuse to avoid the rain instead of characteristically running into it, wondering if you were also relishing the short seconds spanning such a discernible lingering at the end of our conversation.

        I’ve always asserted that I was built with equal parts fire and water, a Piscean balance perpetuated by the ink tattooed onto my knuckles. But when I’m with you, I vacillate between an irrepressibly roaring pyre and a restless squall assailing the sea; a state of constant chaos with no semblance of equilibrium. I surreptitiously sneak glances at you to see if you can secern the catch in my breath when you take a step closer and I feel my entire body burst into flame. I wonder if you can feel the reverberating tremor in my bones when your fingers brush my shoulders and I fight to keep myself from melting into your hands; a glacier reduced to a rush of dangerously rising waters.

        I realized today the depth of how I feel towards you, that it’s not something purely physical or putting you on a pedestal. I want you to know all the smallest parts of me. I want you to see what a black and blue mess I am and I don’t want you to let go of my hands. I want you to know that my blood always runs too hot and how much I loved the way your face lit up when you heard your favorite song. I want you to keep worrying about me and getting annoyed at my lengthy excuses and laughing at my brazen admissions. I want you to know how often I lose my phone and how much I miss my mother. I want you to know when I’m having a bad day and how much I depend on my friends. I want to keep making you laugh when I describe myself too honestly and confess just how much discipline I lack. I want you to realize these are my concessions that I need someone like you in my life; someone to slow me down and keep me from falling and steady me when I lose my balance and hold onto my phone so I don’t misplace it and remind me to stop drinking so much and get frustrated whenever I sell myself short.

        I love how you look for me in a room when I’m always hiding and how you seek me out and sit beside me while I curl my arms around my bruised knees to keep myself from reaching out and touching you. I want our fingers to brush, our shirt sleeves to graze, our knees to buckle, our eyes to exchange. I love observing your chin in between days of shaving and wondering what it would be like to trace a trail along your stubborn stubble. I wish you knew what it meant when you walked me outside after weeks of self-torturous speculations, all the nights spent analyzing your responses to my advances and deciphering how you might feel about me.

        Today, with every step you took beside me, I felt you growing closer and closer; walking in parallel strides instead of in ever-opposite directions. I wish you knew the feeling in my chest when you paused for a breath, just standing still for infinite minutes with no one else but me, while I wracked my brain for ways to expand such a brief moment into another length of forever.

        I want it to rain for an eternity, a vaporous veil dividing the rest of the world from you and I.