avoidance saves me

so much blue

i got flowers for the first time on tuesday and i don’t think i ever want flowers again.

blue chrysanthemums. blue is my favorite color. one stem goes for 70 bob, only. the leaves have traces of blue and even the stem. it feels like seeing myself through the flowers. i got home, placed it in my bottle-like vase that i’ve been holding onto for this moment, filled it in with water and placed it on my desk adjacent to the blue walls of my room. looking at it, her, fills me with so much joy. so much blue.

the next day, the water in the vase was turning blue. the blue from the flowers is seeping through everything. the blue lingers, spreads. she’s gotten comfortable in her vase and found a home in my room. i watch her happen. occupy space she’s been let into. cozy up in it, breathe. all this feels me with so much warmth, until it doesn’t.

i feel the cold of the blue.

this flower will wither and there is nothing i can do to stop it. nature will run its cruel course.

the curtains in my room are a dark navy blue, my bedsheet is a very light blue and my blanket is a mix of blue, white and multiple giraffes and green land. my laundry basket is turquoise and my dustbin together with the dust-cloth is a sky blue.

i love being in my room. i love the comfort and familiarity. it is my home. it goes to the heart of me. i don’t like it when people come to my room. i’ve let very few people in here. actually, i’ve let only two people into my room and it was out of umm…… unique circumstances i won’t get into. letting someone in feels like displacing me. losing grip on the one thing i can have to myself. when you come into my room, you unsettle things. unsettle me. your presence demands space, so you take. you need to sit, you crunch up my blanket. you’ll put your things on my bedside, pushing my stuff. when you leave, i’ll never get back to how things were.

people are suffocating. relationships, friendships, acquaintances have become transactional in a way that i don’t think i can deal anymore.

i like being alone. i love my distance. i hate what being social asks from me.

i hate what feeling for you asks from me. i don’t know how to be ‘chill’ or casual about anything. ‘meet your partner halfway’ ‘don’t center your life around them’ i don’t know what that means. i don’t know how to reach halfway. i’ll give you all of me. regardless of whether it’s at my expense or not. all or nothing.

the depths of my love would form a religion out of you. i’d kneel without being told and worship. sing you hymns and praises, all day and night. in every way. whether in conversation or in bed. mold you into something sacred. and that scares me. everyone is so calculated and measured and then there’s me here wanting something that borders on ruins. willing to give and give contrary to these unspoken codes.

i’d bleed for you, steal for you, kill for you. i’d risk it all for you. become a danger to myself and to others, for you.

i don’t like that. how easily you could become something i orbit. how quickly i could lose the outline of myself trying to trace yours.

it shows up everywhere. i linger too long, long for more from you. i wake up reaching for my phone, did you text me? did i exist in your thoughts while i was gone? hoping for those ‘i know you’re asleep but-’. staring at your messages, hungry for more texts. reading in between the lines for words you’re not saying, or words you could be saying. you send me a reel, i’m trying to decipher it. pick apart if it has pieces of you. i want to learn the inner workings of your mind, what lines your heart. the ghosts of your past, what you look forward to. does you future have us? i want to know it all and in grave detail.

the weight of the love i could carry for you would break me down. all the uncertainty and doubt, would you also give yourself up the way i would? i don’t know how to hold something without imagining its end or how encompassing i’d like it to be.

so i don’t. i watch you from a distance, feel for you from a distance. avoid you when it gets too close. for days, weeks, even though my heart aches to be intertwined with yours. for once, i just want to arrive and stay and love and be loved. but my nervous system registers that as a threat. my chest hurts and this damn heart cowardly sinks to my stomach. i write and write about how it is an amazing thing. a deliberate choosing but when presented with it, i fret. love is safer in theory.

i don’t want to play with fire if i’m the only one getting burnt.

you say you love me but all i have is your words. words are easy to give, easy to stand behind. words that show your intentions. but they’re just that… intentions. i won’t lose my energy. i won’t give my depth away for you to meet it at the surface.

maybe it’s tragic. i doom myself without even trying yet. but my watching from a distance, receiving you, the way you receive me. i examine how you meet me. the efforts you put in. i criticize everyone for being so calculated and measured yet i do the same thing.

well, you can get away with anything if you do it poetically enough.

i won’t give in unless it’s soul crushing devotion. unless you prove you can handle me. just like the blue chrysanthemums, seep into everything around me. relentlessly persist. be interested to merge with me. change the colors of the waters, come swim in it with me.

my love demands. i don’t want a love that behaves, colours in between the margins, stays put. i want a love that wrecks and shakes and stays. a love that would send a poet to descent into madness just at the thought of it.

what i want might be out of this world and so my avoidance saves me. the only way i know how to keep myself intact without spilling over.