Stick

I can feel the internal thermostat rising. Nerves in my cheeks become firecrackers, set off by one little comment or one smile. I bite my lip and look at the ground, my mind swirling with possibilities. My mind playing tricks on me, saying you've texted when you haven't. Watching the clock, calculating just how long I'll have to wait before I get a text that makes me smile like a moron in the middle of my break. Trying to pull my mind back on track as it runs too far away into some romantical world becomes so much harder when you're around, upsetting the butterflies in my stomach and making my ribcage shudder.

I used to love that feeling, but now it feels like I am be drowned in acid when I feel it. I used to smile like this years ago, when you were around, but I still can't totally move on. Your name comes in my head and goes without too much pain, but the thought of someone getting so close, makes me feel like I am choking. My eyes water without trying and my body shudders at the thought of it happening again. Deceitful eyes watching as I bend over backwards just for the person to not even help me back up. The smell of tears on my pillow as I take another nap to forget again. The painful stab of the bits of the blade that you put in back so many years ago.

The ruined song comes into my head again, and the memories hit me like cheap perfume. The glimmer of love scarred me before, and knowing it could happen again, makes the pain worse. The fear that I can't move on, the realization that I am still not over this after so long-- My phone sings, and the sulfuric nostalgia has dissipated again. The fear holds my heart and hangs on, but I can at least be happy to smile for the first time in a very long time.