Mistaken

Oh...a hug? Hello, a hug.
It doesn't make sense, really. It makes no sense at all.
Just a few short days ago, I don't even know if I would have given you the time of day, unless you had really asked with a measure of desperation entering your voice. If you really needed the time, I would have given it to you. But only if it had reached that extent.

And now, we are speaking about bacon and your new phone and my caffeine addiction. We speak as if we have always been this way, acquaintances and friends and intimately tied together. I answered the phone, hopped into the car, let you make the decisions, without even a beat, without a pause, without a "This is strange, Sarah, this is wrong and new and something else." It doesn't feel wrong with you. You make me laugh. You tell me stories of your high school years, using self depricating humor to softly cover how hurt you once were. You are, in every sense, a person, and I find myself realizing that there is no going back for me. I will always have this softness of you with me, and I will never be able to hate you again. You are no longer an ideal or an object to despise, but a person with a real soul and everything to offer. And my, do you make me laugh.

This is so different from the last time that someone surprised me. That was more of a shock than a surprise. I couldn't believe that you had been so disingenuous.You listened to my real concerns and my crazy rants and my opinions like no one had before. And you smiled, not just towards me but at me. Your smile is. Your smile was electric. Now your smile is a shadow of joy. I hope you feel proud, for you had me so fooled that I fell for you. I fell. I FELL, for you. I hadn't felt so excited for the possibility of something beautiful in so long, and you had me believing that you felt the same. In your oblivion, did you never stop to think that maybe you were about to crush me? That one day, with the flowers falling fragrance around me, carried on the warm spring breeze-I never thought I would see something so magical. How dare you take my magic. It doesn't help that you are such the politician. Oh A, you would never dream of directly snubbing me, but with your haughty words and priorities that have nothing to do with me, we are as good as done, but worse. I will never get the satisfaction of an ending. I mustn't burn bridges. I mustn't. I must stifle. But! We could have been a pair, you and I. A real envy. I am glad that temptation was yanked from me before it could have even really have dangled in front of me. The deeper the nail, the more pain it takes to remove it.

I take each person for who they present themselves to be-ironic. Ironic, because I am not who I pretend to be, not at all. I am something else entirely. But I take you, all of you, at face value, and I am open and ready and prepared to be stepped on. I expect too much, and I think I am expecting exactly as I should, and I am everything that is a problem.

And the one person who never fooled me? He is long gone, a ghost and a reason and barely anything more. But he taught me more than he realizes. There are people who wear their pain and their triumphs right where I can see them. They present nothing except reality. Surprise is impossible.

Surprise is impossible.