substitute.

i lusted after your face for a very long time. july or august of last year until just a few weeks ago. that sense of having fulfilled and acquired something you wanted is so human and wasteful. i feel disgustingly tired of myself and the change of moods, minds and desires. witty, beautiful, soft and gentle, laughing, carefree yet all at once too aware of who is looking at you. a face i didn't see when i first met you near the stairs. a face that was different, older, rugged and more hippie than most i've seen. you smiled with faint recognition. i'm not so sure i hid my surprise so well. nice to meet you. yes, you.

i don't remember how our friendship came about. but i vividly remember your picture and my first impression from that picture. as to who first held out a hand to shake through a vast yet intangible, imaginary world of webs, i can't recall. i think it was you, because at that time, i was still too shy to be the first one without having said hello, my name is... in person. so i guess it made me happy to see your hand, invisible in that whole void. i don't know why you reached out. and after all, i don't even really know if you did.

all the different meetings with you, i can't quite piece together. i made myself think for a while that you, and you, and you were different people. but you're only different versions, yes? variations on a melody. yes, i can see the similarities. you are a flower. ordinary, with extraordinary petals here and there. you love me, and you love me not. ditto, darling...ditto.

you wilt in my mind as i escape out through the door you hold open in your heart.