Underdogs and Tidal Waves

Southside of Mellow
2012-03-03 22:42:09 (UTC)

Constellation

And though these days seem bleak these rare instances appear amusing to me though I hardly lift my eyes.
He conducts himself like a film star.
The adulation pours in and yet he is hardly affected.
He knows how to prime his words, steady his prose, pose for the camera and the adoring gazes of those around him.

I hardly move an inch.
I am unaffected in the mild hurricane that his presence brings.
Time after time, he watches me depart.

They say my lack of acknowledgment towards his entire state of being, my failure to produce his name caused an uproar that shook apart his world, cut him down to size.
They say the look on his face could not be reproduced, its timelessness wrought in memory to this day.

There is reticence in his words.
And there is more eased charm to him than there is classic good looks.
For ruffled or un-styled, he could be any face in the crowd.
And night after day, and days following nights, his face as I could not remember could not connect to a name, any sort of standard name.

But it's the manner he conducts around him, the way the room reacts in his presence.
My words are unpolished next to his own.
And there is that strange moment where it feels that we are the only two people speaking in the room and everyone wants to be a part of this. And even before I can finish my drink, he reaches over and lifts my glass.
We connect every time we've ever met in memory, weaving a constellation upon rivulets of drunken recollection, with him adding more detail to each recollection.
There is that moment where he sifts through the pages of the words I have pressed to existence. He asks me before he even lifts my book.
He speaks of the years between us by saying the last he had ever touched such a book could be dated back to when he was in school. He speaks of the times he was accosted thus fearing for my safety the first night we ever met.
And so he confessed that he had waited.
His detail betraying no failure to memory.
Even if it was such an obscure night.
He eases past the divide between us.
My boots only millimeters from grazing his shins.

As strangers pass by and grasp him, he tells me that he doesn't know who they are.
His familiarity hints that he is a frequent patron here.
And while everyone speaks of spending their days in folly, he speaks of a great endeavor. He doesn't seem to be arrogant about it. Though they say it's his entire world.
He intrigues me. I don't even know his last name. He comes by, saying it's about the coffee, standing conveniently by the window within view. But I don't shake the sight. I gaze forward without looking at him. And of course, there is a slight adulation to see him there, but there isn't anything in me that will compel me to bend and melt just at the sight of his convenient appearance.
Despite meeting once more only months ago, the divide melted between us, I don't even look at him.
But as we're standing in the street and I'm departing once more, he stops in his tracks though he's with another girl, spinning around to catch the sight.
I'm sure my eyes are laughing as they connect with his just at the sight to see him caught off guard. But I turn away and depart, keeping my eyes forward as we pass him by.

To see him stop in the middle of street completely arrested just at the sight produces this strange feeling of folly. Our paths crossing are so strange these days. And it's foolish though seeing him in these rare collisions never fails to produce some kind of amusement or private smile amidst the hell reigning down.




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