A walk home through the park
Where darkness swallows every stride,
Your hand in mine because you know I get afraid.
Took me to the bridge
To hold me tight and kiss me slowly,
When you stop to ask that lingering question.
‘Is it perfect for you too?’
I love how you speak. Words roll gently out of your mouth and slow dance around our heads like the ripples of firefly ashes that glide from a dying flame. Your voice wraps itself around my mind and lingers long after silence envelopes the spaces between you and I, your lips whispering sweet nothings in my ear. Your words, always the right ones, like you took the time to pick them out for me. before letting them escape your mouth.
It could not be more different from how I speak. My mouth is a babbling brook, words frothing out of my throat and tumbling clumsily through the silence. They gather like the final wave of the sea, crashing ashore as words slop over each other and muddle together as they spill out of my lips. My chatter cartwheels around your gentle flame in excitable, graceless bounds. Before I can stop them, they plummet from my mouth and pierce through the silence, never the right words, never what I wanted to say.
But your words are there to meet my words, to calm them into a quiet, ebbing shore. Your soft voice is there to lull my nervous high-pitched ramblings into sweet serenity. A few simple words to slow my cluttered mess of a mind, a few of the right words, the best words. Something in the way you speak enchants me, and I’m left mesmerised by the way in which you speak, the beauty that lies in how you talk.
Picture this. A small, fairly unknown café on a street corner in late September, where inside it draws closer to closing time. And there’s you, in a small booth beside the window, coffee cradled in your hands to warm your fingers. The first leaves have begun to fall from the trees,carried in a cool Autumn breeze past the window and skittering along the pavement. You’d be busy marvelling at the beauty outside the window if you weren’t marvelling at the beauty sitting opposite you.
This person; you’ve only known them a short while and yet you’ve already formed this bond a thousand years of friendship couldn’t match. This person with eyes so wide and welcoming, and a smile that awakens the butterflies in your chest and makes your hands clammy. They’re sitting in front of you, this sweet smile playing across their lips as they tell you a story, and you can’t help but smile and nod along within them, completely captured by their everything. You barely lift your head to nod a ‘thank-you’ at the waitress busily scrubbing at the crumbs on your table, so absorbed in this wonderful being in front of you. And it is only when you reluctantly stand up to leave the café that you realise it is empty except for a few half-empty coffee cups scattered across tables. The waitress has disappeared into the kitchen, leaving the both of you completely alone.
‘I had no idea we’d stayed here so long!’ they exclaim, looking at you with a small smile. You shake your head to stop yourself getting lost in those eyes and try to think of something to say.
‘Time flies when you’re having fun, I guess,’ you reply, scratching the back of your head, unable to stop a smile and nervous laugh escaping your lips.
You always hate this part the most; goodbyes have never been your favourite things. You hate the awkward goodbyes and promises of seeing each other again which mostly get broken. You pack away your stuff slowly, trying to savour the moment for as long as possible. Meanwhile they stand patiently beside you, humming along quietly to the tune crackling out of the old battered radio on the checkout table.
‘This is my favourite song,’ you utter, looking up. Your gaze is met to a hand reaching out to you where behind lies an expectant gaze and curious smile. You return a questioning gaze, an eyebrow raised.
‘Do you want to dance?’
The small question is answered by a quiet gasp. Nervously, you take their hand and straighten up. You both draw closer, until your bodies are gently brushing each other, and you can feel their chest rise with each breath while their heartbeat gently thuds against your chest. You pray they cannot hear the intense thudding of your own heart and begin to dance.
The moves are slow and simple, perfectly matching the smooth, calming acoustics of the song. You both remain silent, eyes locked as you spin and step to and fro. Your fingers intertwine, they absent-mindedly stroking your thumb with theirs as you roll a strand of hair intricately through your fingers. Small, shy smiles create conversation that no words could match, the silence enveloping you both in your own world. Their eyes are pools that reflect yours, searching your face, trying to create a memory as feverishly as your eyes are. You could happily stare at those eyes forever, fall deep into the crevices of their soul and remain there in perfect serenity. You could fall in love with those eyes.
And so that is how your perfect date with this perfect person comes to an end; not with stiff, awkward hugs and the drop of your chest as you have to watch them walk away, but with a slow dance in an empty, quiet café in late September. A café where outside leaves fall and life moves on, and where inside two people dance to the gentle rhythm of two hearts beating as one.
There’s something about eyes that just captivates me. When a mask is carved and placed expertly over a face to create a void of emotion, eyes are the one things that consistently shine through and show how we really feel, who we truly are. Out of everything in a person, eyes always remain in my mind after the memory of a face has long since faded.
I love eyes of any colour, wide and child-like or small and scrutinising. I love eyes that are seas you could drown in, with hazy flecks of colours swimming through their gentle following colour. I love eyes surrounded by paths of crinkles and wrinkles that tell of a thousand frowns and a thousand smiles. I love eyes with glints of secrets shrouded within, the ghost of stories yet untold hiding and waiting to be discovered. I love eyes that express more than words and a smile ever could; eyes that create a memory so vivid it engrains itself into our very minds. I love the eyes of children, filled with innocent delight and an unending curious gleam. I love the eyes of the older, brimming with tears spilled and frothing with laughter, bright, wise sparks of life in a wrinkled, ageing face. I love how every eye sees the world in a different way, and how no two eyes could ever look the same; eyes who have withheld the beauty of this world and have endured pain and sorrow, eyes that reflect every memory in a kaleidoscope of colour and brightness that I can’t help but fall for each time I look upon them.
When people ask me, ‘Did you enjoy 2012?’, I have to think for a second before answering. Because in that moment, a thousand thoughts flurry through my mind’s eye in a kaleidoscope of colours and emotions.
I see family, friends, laughter, tears, shouting, cheering, love, loss, good points and bad points. I see late nights spent whispering, texting, over-analysing, crying and daydreaming with youthful hope. I see mornings spent running, eating, talking and dancing around my kitchen with my dog. I see a relationship that flourished then shrivelled and grew worn like a flower after Summer’s last sun. I see a friendship that became something more, then simply faded away. I see a summer that could’ve been the best and almost became the worst of my entire life. I see a fractured self-esteem only now learning how to mend itself. I see a dark time of trying to find answers to questions I didn’t have, a time where hands reached out and pulled me back up to a place of light and hope. I see faces, some happy, some sad, some just thoughtful. I see memories which I’ll cherish long after these years are over, memories that will still bring a shine to my eyes and a smile to my lips long after they happened. I see a new year, promising and full of childish hope and naïvety, just waiting for me to explore. I see it all, and then, coming out of my daze, I answer.
‘It’s been an interesting year,’ I reply, a small smile playing on my lips and the glint of a thousand memories and secrets yet untold reflecting in my curious eyes.
I have a tendency to fall for passionate people. One of my favourite things is watching someone talk about something they truly love and are passionate about. The way their eyes light up and their whole being suddenly becomes alive and enchanted. I love how they talk in awed tones with flourishing hand movements, everything about them filling with light and delight. I can’t help but smile with them as they discuss with me, their love ebbing into me as I nod along and listen intently.. And even if it’s a topic I have virtually no interest in, if the person is passionate about it, they’ll have me hanging onto their every word.
It’s always late at night when eyes flutter closed,
That hopes and dreams truly show themselves,
In the darkness images burst into life and I see,
For the first time, all that I want.
A quiet café in Paris, late October, I see a girl,
Pen poised above paper, eyes closed in thought,
A forgotten coffee sits untouched and slowly cooling,
A pastry crumbles in her contemplating hands.
An idea strikes like lightning through her mind,
Her eyes dance with delight as she comes to life,
Pastry drops through fingers, pen frantically scribbles,
Line after line floods onto paper.
Finished, she dots the last word; triumphantly drops the pen,
Lifts the coffee and winces at the cold, metallic taste.
Shifted back to reality, she shakes her head, grabs her coat,
Passes the waitress a distracted smile as she goes.
Hands in pockets, she steps through streets of strangers,
Curious eyes soaking in every brick, sign and face she sees,
She walks without conversation, but her mind rambles on,
Every ebb of her imagination filling the silence around her.
And it is that girl I see every time I close my eyes,
The girl lost in a world of her own, caught up in her very own story,
The girl, that when brought out of dreams into reality,
Could maybe someday become me.
They met each other through church when they were just kids, and happened to be in the same group. My mum told me that she fell for my dad as soon as she met him, and decided that he was going to be hers. And from that day she obsessed over my dad and followed him like a lone sick puppy.
My dad, on the other hand, was not so fond of mum; in fact, he found her constant presence annoying. And so for most of high school she followed him around and he tried his very best to ignore her, his eyes always more focused on two pretty blond sisters in school. Constant rejection eventually got the better of my mum however, and eventually she must have given up on the idea of my dad, and passed him in the hallways without giving him a backward glance. And suddenly, dad started to notice mum.
In a strange kind of way, he missed her excitable giggly nature and how eager she was to please. He missed her small figure looking up at him with pure wonderment in her child-like eyes. He missed the daydreaming looks and small blushing smiles she flashed him when they passed by each other. He missed the girl, who, despite having an amazing ability to annoy him more than anyone else, loved him with her everything. He missed the girl who had once seemed so plain, and now stood out amongst everyone. And so it came to be that on one day at a church event, something pretty amazing happened.
Now, remember I mentioned the two blond sisters? Well, their mother seemed to think my dad was a perfect match for her daughters, and thought she’d tell my dad so.
‘Billy,’ she greeted him, a girl on either side of her, ‘I know you and my daughters would go very well together. Which of them would you like to go on a date with?’
Dad smiled a little, at two girls he’d spent most of his school life thinking about, then turned round to a small girl beside him. A girl with child-like eyes and a giggly nature, who’d spent years falling head over heels for him and hadn’t stopped. A girl who looked up at him at that very moment, her eyes clouded with confusion and tiny shreds of hope, her mouth ever so slightly agape.
‘I think,’ he replied, sliding an arm around her shoulders, ‘I think I’ll stick with Kay for now.’
And so they walked off, leaving a frustrated mother with two very pretty but slightly embarrassed sisters. Soon after they started dating, and years after that they got married. Now about twenty years later, their love is still as strong and pure as it was that day and the days that followed. Yes, they’ve had their hard times, but they’ve pulled through. They made it through the worst of it, and although there’s probably more to come I think they have a strength that can endure.
When I see my parents all I can see is this overwhelming love. A love that I think everyone should have a notion of, a love that one day I hope to find. A love that I hope finds me.
And in the morning,
When the lights are too harsh,
When the night’s sparks have long since faded,
Please don’t let me forget you,
Please don’t let me regret you.
And in the morning,
When the cold seems too heavy,
When my lips have long since left yours,
Please don’t let you forget it,
Please don’t let you regret it.
