Being the Other Girl, Part I
You text me at three in the morning while you’re drunk and horny
Laziness and convenience is no stranger to you
After all, I live right down the street
You tell me to come over for a beer if I want to
I rescheduled my sobriety for another month anyways
You’ve already confessed to me your love for her
You say “we’re trying to work things out.”
But that doesn’t stop you from kissing me that night
We’re both high and drunk and making bad decisions is built within the fabric of our existence
You put your arms around me and hold me while playing with my hair
I can feel your beard rubbing against my cheek
Our faces slightly turn and your lips meet mine
I don’t stop you this time
Even though you told me you had no recollection of the first time you tried to kiss me
No sparks, no butterflies, no emotional rollercoasters
Just two aroused, drunken hearts looking to get off
It’s just the way I like it
It’s the next day and you tell me again you want to work things out with her, and that should be your focus
It was a one-and-done kind of deal
I see the way you look at her and envy strikes my bones
Because I want to believe that love exists as much as you believe you feel it
I was never one for love
Never understood it, never felt it, never wanted to
It’s just a cultural concept we’ve appropriated from mythology to give us a reason to exist
But my mind begins to race and thoughts implode from curiosity, wondering what it is you see in her
So I can know what to look for if I decide to go hunting for love
I wish I was a dementor
So I can suck the love right out of your heart and into mine and for a moment understand what it feels like to hold your other half in your arms as the whole world freezes and there’s no one else there except for the two of you
I want to erase infatuation from my memory and feel the way it feels to fall into your lover’s eyes and nothing else matters but the color of her iris and how her pupils get bigger as she looks at you
Love has escaped me at every opportunity I thought I had to experience it
Like a plumber jumping into a green pipe escaping into a new world going for the easy catching coins
I was never one for monogamy
But I’ve been told it is because I haven’t found love yet
That when I meet “the one,” my desire for copious amounts of meaningless sex will change
Love is the glass I shattered after looking in the mirror
Its shards I dig into my skin
So I can bleed for you, love
So I can believe in you, love
So I can feel your presence, love
But I look down at my wrists and there is no blood
The shattered glass is gone
It was never there in the first place
Like a dementor grabbing your face and sucking and sucking but nothing comes out
Because you can’t feel something that doesn’t exist
All I wanted was to fuck you.
But a myth destroyed that chance
And your heart is set on her
But it’s not the path to your heart I’m looking to follow
It’s the lust in your bones I’m looking to extract
Sara Ali is a freelance journalist and works full time in human services. She spends her nights lurking the streets of Buffalo, attempting to discover the parts unknown. She’s also a cat fanatic and endeavors to be the world’s most famous cat lady someday.