MayShortReads20: Admirer

*Image via photostock on FreeDigitalPhotos.

I wonder when you’ll turn up today. Immersed in conversations, sinking into close company I drown myself, surfacing every now and then for air. You’re usually discreet. You show up when least expected. As if you’re trying to catch me trying to catch you out.

I won’t ask anyone about you. I won’t even look around, no, I won’t. Why should I show you I care? It might scare you off. That wouldn’t be entertaining. I need to build you up, buttercup. And ah, there you are! Sliding in behind two others, you thought I wouldn’t catch you. Damn right, I won’t show I spotted you. You like hiding? I’ll give you unseen. You voyeur, you. You like to watch, don’t you? I’ll put on a show, alright.

And so my sunshine comes out again, infecting everyone with its vivacity, with its infectious enthusiasm. It’s like dancing, only no one knows I’m dancing with your eyes. Even you don’t know it, my sweet. The lenses come out, flashes popping. The party has begun!

You’re so cool, aren’t you? With your sidelong glances at the camera, never smiling. Naw, you leave that to the specimens like me. We who smile and pirouette and pout and prance up and down for your benefit. For your sole viewing pleasure. For your entertainment.

I bet you never knew that I knew so much about you. Bet it never occurred to you that somebody else turns thoughts over and over in their brains, just like you do. That the subject of your heated gaze, shielded barely by your amused eyelids, that I, have eyes too.

Oh glory! Oh joy! Oh what fun, fun, fun!

And as you watch my hands float down, your eyes tracing that sharp, sleek curve, your attention snags at my eyes. A flash, a gleam of something you didn’t catch. You start and stare again. But I’m gone, running with the wind, in the shadow of open skies, leaving behind a trail of sweet sensations for you to follow.

And then, then you smile.

You’re so cool. You are.

You are the sweetness of a stranger’s smile
The comfort of an opened collar
The freedom of a longing gaze at someone’s back after they’ve turned

You are hooded eyes dancing with excitement
And a practiced nonchalance broken in an instant with a smile
You’re the magic of effort meeting impulse

You’re…oh my, I lost my train of thought. Where did that golden manly voice come from? It couldn’t possibly be yours. You’re too cherubic. I stop and listen. I drift in closer and settle, melting, snowflake like at your feet. Guitar nestled in your arms, your fingers caressing. Your song washes over me like high tides as your melody churns. You’re captive to your own fingers and voice only. Your lips make love to the universe as they slow dance with the air. And when you bite down on them, I hear the stadium roar for an encore. Then your gaze lifts and you look straight into me.

You pierce me, stab me right through the deepest center of me. One look, I want to say. But you’re still holding it. Holding me up in your gaze, bearing down on me, heavy with the weight of your undiluted attention. You. Me. I can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t…

You flick the lock of hair from over your forehead and oh so casually break away. Leaving me in tatters, fragments and sharp shards of ecstasy. You are so cool. No, you’re not. No, you’re not.

You cruel creature, you. I think I love you.