I knew I was in trouble when a little over a week ago I saw you for the first time…
Maybe it is still too early to call you, or rather your presence trouble,
but with every encounter this euphoric unease in me is growing out of control…

It’s all in your eyes, I guess…
How weird and amazing it is that eyes contain so little yet communicate so much,
That with one regard one can guess with a high degree of accuracy how honest and loving a person is…
It’s not the colour of your eyes,
but rather the gaze that betrays you…

Gosh, I can’t do this…
I have got to stay focused…
I have to hide my emotions, my sadness, and my anguish from this person that seems to have come out of nowhere..
We don’t share stuff like these in the first encounter, or the second, probably never…
Keep acting friendly…
Smile…
Ask questions..
Yes, ask questions so that there’s less pressure on you to share…
I can’t do this…

On a car ride from work, and on the bumpiest of roads we exchange what is supposed to be small talk,
and we fail…
We manage not to stray away from talking about ourselves and our dreams…
And my uneasiness grows when I discover how frighteningly similar our dreams are…
How could this be true?

Gosh, this is weird…
Get me out of this car…
I need to run away…
This can’t be true, God…
I don’t have the energy for this…
I am not going through this again.

We meet again, and we lose ourselves in conversations that meander seamlessly from one topic to the other…
It’s too good to be true…
We discover that we share not only the same dreams but the same confusion; the same questions that remain unanswered, the same puzzlement when observing life…

God, I want to disappear…
I don’t want to exist anymore…
I am tired…
This is getting harder; hiding my anguish and my desperation.
When do I get to drop the news that I have lost a brother and a father and that I am barely clinging to life?

We continue talking,
and I can’t help but see your affectionate side…
The words of affirmation…
Your reduced capacity to see all the horrible and detestable within me…

This is dangerous…
God, I don’t want to harm this person…
Show her how awful I am…
Make her see the sides in me that I’m ashamed of..
Let her realise how ordinary and inconsistent and below average I can be…
This isn’t looking well…

And so, I continue observing you…
My brain, as per its usual, jumps a thousand steps ahead and warns of imminent disaster,
Mainly of a pair of kind eyes becoming sad after being engulfed into the world of another not so kind but equally sad pair of eyes…
I know it is too early, but I want to share with you everything…
I want to tell you everything that I am ashamed of…
I want to share with you the name of the girl before,
A name that I recently developed the habit of writing on the palm of my hand, not because we’re together, but because I am so desperate for intimacy and kindness to the point that caressing the ink baring her name is the closest thing that I can get…
I want to share with you the thousand reasons why things wouldn’t work out between us…
And after sharing all of this,
I really would want you to stay…