feel free to read this chapter while listening to the song below <3
/A WEEK LATER,
these faded bookshelves feel like home. like sipping on chilly november afternoons (like this one) with blue gray wind slipping through the cracks of the misted windows and colouring away my sanity and replacing it with gray watercolor dreams. they smell of something archaic, something warm, like autumn or 11:11, or both. these books feel like spring, like acrylic paints smeared over scribbled hearts and sketched collisions. acrylic paints shades of poetry, shades of adventure, shades of courage. these bookshelves feel like home.
i walk through the maze of bookshelves in the library to find the table i usually sit at, the one by the window overlooking the schoolyard, and the streets with the cars flashing by.
i turn a corner and that's when i collide into someone. and then the sketchbooks and pens in my arms are falling and raining over the floor, a flurry of colors, disoriented scribbles pages flapping like wings crashing into the floor like a sketched collision, just like that day-
my knees are raw from when i landed. i look up, into a mixture of green and gold, like dots of sunlight through densely gathered leaves. eyes that hold laugher, and a lonely darkness underneath the surface. a gasp escapes me and my heartbeat all of a sudden sounds like waves pounding against the shore. your name repeats in my head over and over again until it becomes a rhythm in my head.
auburn. auburn. auburn. auburn. auburn.
it's been a week since i last saw you.
you lean down, kneeling to gather the scattered papers, bunching the pens in one pile. your eyes scan the scribbled sketches. like last time. last time. the first time we ever spoke.
"where've you been?" i ask you, as i pick up the scattered brushes and markers with you.
you smile at me. it's a nice smile, a true smile. it doesn't reach your eyes.
"i've been gone," you reply casually. there's a lingering darkness beneath the surface of your words, telling me to not further mention it. i don't.
we stand, and you hand over my sketchbooks and pens.
"thank you,"
together we walk to the table.
🌙
"why do you draw?"
you ask, mindlessly, as you look
outside the window, over the cold
schoolyard, extending over to the
cold, skeleton like streets.
the tip of my pencil traces the outline of something i can't see. i don't know what i'm drawing,
"don't know,"
the gray lines form into new worlds, scribbles colliding into a big bang of art and disorientation, the tip of my pen is like a faded blue kite, tracing the vast sky with the string of an infinitely long spool over watercolor sunsets and inked cities,
"i think it's because it makes me dream,"
the brush, one that has met thousands of colors, drowns in the light dreamy green. the green then meets a soft shade of yellow, the color of daffodils, mixing into merged daydreams,
"i guess i like how it makes me feel,"
the brush dips into the water, and for an instant the shades are coloured away, swirling petals of paint in the silvery liquid,
i glance at you for a small moment.
"you know, it really feels as if you're flying. because you're pouring out who you are when you paint. you're spilling out the unspoken,"
the brush dances over the canvas like dragonflies over a pond of emerald whiskey. like pretty fish flitting in spring waters, flipping their glittering, pretty tails to create ripples in the faded enigma, like flying,
"you know, i like you,"
you say, absentmindedly,
"you say beautiful things
that make no senses,"
"oh?"
you meet me in the eyes, your gaze thoughtful,
"i'd like you to be my friend,"
"was i not already?"
the brush blooms color over the rough pencil sketches and ink scribbles, seeping into the cracks of my vision, training my dark irises with dreamy watercolor kaleidoscopes and drowning down my veins engraving themselves as love letters into my heart, the palette of all sensation,
"well, i suppose. but i want
you to be my best friend,"
"you sound like a child,"
"don't be blunt," you laugh.
your laughter feels like an ache
in my heart. it makes me smile
internally.
"but, aren't we all children?
isn't aging just an illusion of
expectation that we have
to carry? not all children are
young anymore, some are
just overgrown,"
"fair enough,"
the brush streaks wonderland seasons into existence, sweeping valleys and wildflower meadows and fireworks and uranium shooting stars and galaxies into being. i am the master and i am creating everything i ever wanted, wanted to be. something wonderful, something out of the world,
"auburn,"
"yeah?"
"i can't be your best friend,"
"why not?"
"because,"
i set the brush down, and the colors die. fading back to reality. i look into your bright, glassy, empty eyes.
"we're really just strangers pretending that we're right for each other,"
something flashes in your eyes, before you look away, out the window once again. after a moment of silence, you reply, a strange sadness in your voice.
"i see..."
in this moment, i feel so faraway from you, so faraway from you. a thousand light years away.