wide awake

One night I set my alarm to wake me up when I’d forgotten you. I slept through three Septembers that never seemed to end, every other October you weren’t there to be the Ron to my Kim Possible or Spiderman to my Gwen Stacy (redheads make for the best fiercely independent and feminine Halloween costumes), and a single November, where I revisited that Thanksgiving morning that began with a bloody nose and couldn’t remember what you smelled like fresh out of the shower anymore. In December I cut my hair off into a neat, common pixie and made it brown as mud, because I thought maybe looking ordinary would make my life feel that way again, and I stopped reading stories that would make me want to be different. It took six and a half Januaries to forget the champagne bubbles on your lips – the extra half was the result of waiting until the Chinese New Year to make my resolutions (when the gyms and exercise goals were already a month discarded), and finally not worrying when they never saw fruition. There were no Februaries to get through, because there wasn’t any romance there anymore, but March after March after March was a struggle because the world was blooming around me but I didn’t want to keep going anymore, and for months the sunshine was so cruel as to conjure up images of your smile. April, May, and June were skipped over in the blink of a summer, July took only a minute to release the sensation of your arms wrapped around me, and then it was August, when I first met you, and your laughter fell in my hands like coins or magic beans and the key turned and I thought it was the sound of a whole new world being unlocked but it was you leading me into a windowless cellar. I could have been Sleeping Beauty in another life, except I didn’t need a stranger’s kiss to pull me from unconsciousness, I only had to wait for your memory to disappear, so I could start living those dreams. Now I’m wide awake.