Her eyes are blue even though she says they aren’t. 

She exudes indifference. Even in the way she talks. Even in the way she looks. She always chooses silence, preferring not to reveal anything unless crucial. She shows me her back while the winds kiss her short, chocolate hair. She whispers phrases nobody hears while I stare at those pinkish lips caressing each other. When I write about her existence, my fingers make love with the words. She has no idea that the stars come up every time she appears. She has no idea my world shines a gloomy light every time she emerges in my mind. Loving is not a pleasure. Loving is another way to damage oneself. 

I know that the mountains in her head are sheer. That there are no mariners in her sea because it is cloudy. But I love the way she looks at me. As if she wished to blur time. Make the minutes last decades. However, we waste our seconds in minutiae. She never notices I am at the base of her mountain. Hoping she will pity me, longing to lose myself in her jungle. 

There is something hidden in the way we touch each other. 

There is something hidden when her hands leave my skin full of expectation. I want her to trace my body from memory. I want her to know me without lies, without formalities, without glancing at me twice. I want her mind to be full of my silhouette, so she sees me everywhere. I want her voice to tremble when she remembers my existence. 

Loving is sad because I live in constant illusions. When she kisses other worlds, my heart is consumed by its flames. When she smiles at other worlds, my soul stops beaming. The dusk falls in the most hidden part of myself. With an overpowering force, my happiness turns into night, into midnight. 

I can't take my eyes off her. If she were in the middle of a starry night, her light would tone down others. They could be star fires, tearing the sky with their blazes, but next to her, they would all become tiny and flickering sparks while she becomes more dazzling. More glittering. More shining. Her every word is a flower I put in a vase, trying to make it live longer. Wishing it will keep blooming.

I'm her first love which terrifies me. Because that means there will be others while I transform into a faint memory. Because the things she does not do with me, she will do them with someone else. Because those desires she did not discover by my side, she will try them on another mouth. Because of everything she is afraid of at this moment, she will forget it holding someone else's hand. Someone more shining. Someone more dreamy. Someone for who she falls, and falls, and falls.

I'm her first love, and there will be others she will write the most mesmerizing symphonies with. And I will only be the first one. 

I know that I'm not the love of her life, but I live in constant illusions. I know that she will hold hands with somebody able to tear down her walls. I know that somebody will read between her lines. I know that somebody will write about paradise on her belly. However, I block her path because I'm selfish. I wish that those who will never be mine wander and get caught in my traps.

There is not a winter inside of her. There is a frost. She never looks at me as if she knew my secret. I am a desecrator of beauty: I have stared at the sun for too long. The kisses she has never given me burn me. The secrets I have not heard burn me. I want to swim in her cloudy waters. I want to drink from her fears.

Nevertheless, I am a coward. I never tell her how I feel. I never try to help her. I see buildings made of ashes being blown away by the wind. I stare at her pain from the sadness of distance. 

Maybe tomorrow will be the day. And all it takes is to draw her face in my mind and have her body close, so my desire to touch her starts killing me. Even though I do not have the strength to protect my illusions. Even though all I need is to look at how she smiles to others to know that, to love, one needs fury. 

But I only have sadness. 

She says she loves me, but I love her more. 

I will always love her more. 

I am frightened she gets bored of what we have. I am terrified she only loves me because of what she sees on the surface. I am scared I will not leave her any marks. An ending we end up with our shadows is my worst nightmare. What if she wakes up one day next to me and finds nothing worth staying?

However, I would rather see her hand laying on other than see her weeping on her pillow. 

But, why doesn't she trust me? Why doesn't she tell me everything?

I know the equations of life. I know the limits of the galaxies. I will teach her the theory of infinity, and the only price I ask is to discover the science of her lips and fears. If she lets me sleep on her wounds, if she tells me what wanders on the limits of her being, I will fight against destiny. Because I am not the love of her life, but I am hers. From the last cell of my body until the first coincidence that belonged to us. 

I am not the same woman since she told me she loves me. I am not the same woman since I asked her to go slower. Maybe she will be happier with someone else. And that would be ok. If I had to choose between seeing her valleys cry due to loneliness or having my sky empty because the flowers of our love withered, I would stare at a winter sky forever. 

But I do not confess any of that when she tells me her eyes are not blue. 

"My eyes are gray." She puts the iced orange cookie back on her plate. There are crumbs in the right corner of her mouth. I bite my lip, preferring to concentrate on the chocolate strands of hair tickling behind her ear. “My eyes have always been gray like your T-shirt or your cup."

I am not the same woman since I noticed she talks to me as if she was choking with the truth. I do not move a finger to help her. I am afraid she says she does not need me. And this fear is bigger than my intentions. It is bigger than this body in which I lock down my ills. 

"You’re going to my place at five, right?"

"Yeah."

And I bet the leather of her jacket must taste like her skin, that the storm in her head is the most beautiful place on Earth to get lost. I have begged for her help, but I guess she does not want me to soothe her waters, to roll down her valleys, to love her jungle. 

When I get back to my senses, she has just closed the door of the coffee shop and left a kiss on my cheek. Am I the love of her life? Will she kiss her next lovers the same she does now, or the levels of her passion would decrease because every person she looks for is not me? 

I will hold her back. I will forget my selfishness. I will create a universe of lies, so she stays with me forever. 

After some hours, with my head laying down in the lap of a friend, I say, "I'm not myself anymore. I don't know my own heart."

"Your heart does not change. It gets confused from time to time. Have you tried to tell her how you feel?"

And I smile because there are no more tears for this dilemma. I live in constant illusions, trapped in what I wish reality could be. Falling in love is a beautiful agony for some of us. Her smile is the reason why my happiness has died. Though I must confess, there is a darkness in loving that I am addicted. Maybe I live caged inside myself because I do not want to be happy. Perhaps I want to suffer because that's what I think I deserve. 

Or maybe I want to suffer because the woman I love lives hiding, and I live caged in my illusions. I am convinced there is purification in pain. And perhaps, the dawn she loves me as much as I love her will rise. The dawn her flesh is mine, and her fears belong to me will be real. That dawn in which indifference stops being an obstacle to what now burns inside of me.

"How do you tell someone that love starts with their name?"

For the first time of the night, my best friend looks at me as if she has finally understood what I have tried to tell her in a thousand ways. 

"Claudia…"

Her hand raises. I move before she touches me. The pain is so evident in those gray eyes, but I've chosen to ignore it. Just like she has always done with me. 

And while I see her lips moving, denying everything said in my story, swearing it was not her intention to hurt me, there is only one thing I am thinking. It is the same thing I will always brood. It is my blessing, my torture. 

Alessandra.