It's the most important thing to a conversation. The most important part of making a connection. A connection that makes you vulnerable, but also powerful. It creates a trust between the onlookers. It leaves a longing sensation to look into those eyes again, to see what they are seeing, and to feel what they feel.
He makes eye contact with me. Only for brief moments at a time, but are they many moments. I look up to watch him moving, watch him expressing, and he's there, optics pointed directly at me. And for a moment, I can't breathe. I'm afraid of what I would see, but I'm afraid of missing something if I look away. The longing hits me. I want to stare forever and ever into the gaze of a man who is hiding his true self inside of the motions and words of someone completely different. But I can't; he doesn't feel that way, I think, he doesn't think like that.
And so I look away. But sure enough, there's another moment, just a few seconds later, where our eyes meet, and the cycle starts over. Only this time, he looks away first, tearing at the strings in my chest and implanting terrible thoughts into my brain.
But then I think. I think and think until I'm lost in thought, until my entire world is one thought masquerading as thousands. Why do I feel this way? Why do I feel like I need to feel this way? Is it because it's how I had felt for years with a pair of different eyes? Is it because I long for the sensation of what typically transpires after the initial contact? Is it because I oh so desperately with for those specific eyes to help me forget the other ones, to give me all of the attention and all of the soul that they could possibly offer me so that I can pretend that I'm in love again?
I blink. I can't fall in love again. Not now. Not with anyone.
It's not my place.
So then, the avoiding game begins. I dodge his eyes, instead staring down at my papers and my pencil. I look at everyone else, watching their intricate characters, and ignoring his - the most important. I stare at the one in charge, intently listening, really registering, but in a mere moment forgetting what she had just now said. Because the eyes are pointing in the same direction as mine. And if I simply glanced over... but I don't. I can't. I won't. I shan't.
My heart beats. My hands twitch. My body aches. And my head won't stop thinking.
Thinking back to the moment that made me afraid of the eyes that I desperately wish to stare into. Thinking back to the starless night, surrounded by lights, with no one around but us. Thinking back to the things he said, and the things I said. Thinking back to the moment I cried and desperately wished for him to hold me in comfort. Thinking back to the thoughts I had about him, about us, and how impure they were.
It's not love, I remind myself. It's infatuation. It's unhealthy. It's disgusting. You're disgusting.
And now I've returned, burning and weeping and screaming inside, but smiling and laughing on the outside. I'm ready now to meet the eyes. And I do. I meet them once again, a burning anger towards myself rising to the surface.
But then he smiles at me. He makes a joke made specifically for me. I laugh. I wish I could cry. Everything forgotten. Everything left behind me.
Eye contact is the single worst blessing that I've ever received.
