Your step falters by half a centimetre.
Ah...
Music.
You compose yourself at once — well done!
But that half centimetre belongs to me.
I tuck it into my pocket, along with other small thefts: a shiver, a short gasp, the twitch of an eyebrow.
You don't look at me.
You stare past the street toward the sidewalk across from us.
You're searching for an exit.
Oooh, darling — you're looking in the wrong place!
The exit is never outside.
It's inside, and I closed it long ago.
Do you remember when you asked me if I would disappear forever?
What a funny question.
I took your wrist, with two fingers, feeling the beat of your heart.
I said: disappearing is for those who believe in nothing.
You answered something I don't want to remember.
Or that I can't.
I have no regard for nothingness.
"Answer me," you say now, finally turning sideways, just enough to catch my gaze with the corner of your eyes.
Your voice betrays its urgency, even though you keep it low.
"Why are you here?"
Here it is, the serious question.
Why?
People burn themselves out on whys.
I feed on "hows".
On "when".
On "how much".
I could tell you: to watch you tremble without touching you.
I could tell you: to remind you that the word "ex" is a joke.
I could tell you: because I was bored and needed the taste of you on my thoughts.
Oooh~, all wonderfully insufficient!
"Because I can."
It comes out on its own, the answer.
Simple.
Honest, even.
A rare honesty, from my mouth.
It stops you for a seed of a second.
Then you furrow your brow, a little wrinkle that's born and dies.
I catch it, adopt it, carry it away with me.
We cross the street.
The green light is already blinking; pedestrians quicken their pace.
A child drags a plastic kite with Bubbles drawn on it; it doesn't fly, it scrapes and whistles on the wet asphalt.
There's a dog pulling its owner in the opposite direction.
You, instead, have learned not to pull.
You've learned that with me, yanking the leash hurts more than keeping it slack.
We stop at the edge of the next curb.
A car stops too close to the crosswalk; the tire kisses the paint.
The horns argue with each other with the eloquence of idiots.
I smile.
The world believes that noise is power.
I turn sideways, so that my presence blocks your view of the traffic.
I force you to look elsewhere: at me, at the shop window, or at the shadow of our bodies on the closed door of a store.
When we kissed, sometimes I looked at the shadow, not at you.
More sincere, the shadow.
Or more deceitful?
Mh… never knew.
"I don't want troubles."
You say it softly, almost just for yourself.
And yet, it's a thread thrown toward me.
I don't want troubles.
Oh, darling, trouble is the only living thing I know.
Everything else is wallpaper.
"Then don't ask questions you don't want answers to."
Do you feel the blade?
It's thin.
It doesn't cut, it skins.
I see you searching for an anchor in normality.
The shop window, the price list of a bar, a rental sign.
Anything that doesn't have my face.
Oooh~, what a fierce tenderness!
I'd like to stroke it away, this craving for normality.
First with an open hand, then with the back.
I don't touch you.
Not yet.
The rule, remember?
The more I hold back, the more I belong to you.
And the more I belong to you, the less you are mistress of yourself.
The wind changes direction.
It brushes a lock of hair from your face.
For an instant that tiny mole appears, the one just beneath your eye.
Memory lights up:
the tip of my tongue grazing the corner of your gaze, your breath breaking, my low laugh.
Oooh~, was it real?
It doesn't matter.
I like it.
"What are you looking for?" you venture.
There it is — your third blade.
You surprise yourself at having drawn it.
A part of you still believes that words can create distance.
Words, with me, erase walls.
"Your face when you look at me."
I only realize after that I've said it.
Interesting.
Me, confessing such a precise interest.
I must be in a good mood.
Or cruel.
Or both.
You shift your bag from one shoulder to the other.
It's a practical gesture, but you use it as a shield.
Left, right.
You want to keep me busy interpreting you.
Oh, you don't need to try so hard: I interpret you even when you sleep.
The sky is gray, a thick wet cloth.
A distant siren stretches into a single note.
Everything tells me: today is an ordinary day.
Except the two of us.
We are the wrong note in the score.
I let others look at you, if they want.
Let them think: a couple arguing without making a scene.
Oh, if they only knew!
We're not arguing.
We're flaying each other's souls with steel feathers.
The light turns red on the other side.
Stopped again.
The theatre smells the applause; it doesn't come.
Only rain, only car horns, only marching heels.
"If I tell you to go?"
Your voice is a step steadier now.
It's not an order, it's an attempt.
I love attempts: they're truer than proclamations.
I tilt my head.
I let my hair fall against my cheek.
I could say: I'm going.
I could take two steps back.
I could fade into the crowd, leave you the illusion of victory.
Oooh~, and how long would it last?
Illusion wears a watch on its wrist.
"You could say it better."
I smile sweetly, a slow-release poison.
"You could say "please"."
I feel the wave moving through you — anger, fear, disgust, memory.
Your mouth opens.
Nothing comes out.
You close it.
Open it again.
You inhale.
I remember a breath on the lobe of my ear.
Your nail scratching the back of my neck.
A "stop" stammered like a prayer or a curse.
Me saying: again.
Oooh~, what a candy the mind becomes when I suck it back into time.
The light changes again.
Green frees us, the current restarts.
You don't move.
You stay next to me.
You deserve a bow I won't give.
You hurt yourself holding your eyes still.
I see it.
You'd like to close them.
Instead you keep them wide open, like someone who doesn't want to miss a single frame of the impending crash.
How much grace there is in the wrong kind of courage.
"Please."
You say it softly.
Up to here, no one would have heard it except me.
A thread of voice stretched between two fingers.
Oooh~, here's the music I prefer.
"Please": two words that in your mouth taste of glass and honey together.
I don't smile.
I don't laugh.
I don't comment.
I let it get under my skin.
It hurts.
One second.
Two.
Then I transform the pain: I screw it in, I polish it, I lay it where I prefer.
Et voilà, it becomes pleasure.
I am an artist, after all.
"Then here's an answer for you."
My voice returns to normal, almost kind, enough to make you hate kindness.
"I'm not following you."
I see you stiffen, ready to call me a liar.
I raise a finger, invisible.
"I'm waiting."
The sentence falls between us like a marble on marble.
It rolls.
It stops.
It looks at you.
Waiting for what?
I read it in your pupils.
Waiting for it to break.
Waiting for you to choose.
Waiting for the first heartbeat to admit my name without saying it.
On the shop window our double reflection appears.
Me darker, you lighter.
We look like a playing card: the queen and the jester.
Who holds the blade?
I do, always.
But you too, sometimes, with words like "go away," "enough," "please."
Soft blades, yours, but sharp enough to cut.
"And if I don't choose?"
You say it like a child defying the rule, ready to burn her tongue on the candle.
Oooh~, I love it.
"Then I choose."
Simple.
Terrible.
True.
The rain stops again, as if ashamed.
The sky stays low.
Someone behind us laughs loudly.
It doesn't matter.
We are on another stage.
I turn just enough to free the view for you.
A gift.
Go on, look at the world.
Take in the air.
Delude yourself.
And while you do, know that my breath is still behind your neck, ready to remind you that breathing is a luxury I allow.
"Maybe I should go."
I say it — the phrase you want from me.
I toss it to you the way one throws a bone to a biting dog.
I watch how you bite.
You don't bite.
You stop.
You're afraid of the trap.
Oooh~, you learn it!
What a cruel joy, to see how late you learn.
"Maybe."
You repeat it.
It's a word that resembles us.
Everything and nothing.
A suspended bridge without railings.
I'm about to laugh, and I don't.
I'm about to touch you, and I don't.
I'm about to leave, and I stay.
I have all the doors open inside me, and I choose to cross none.
For now.
There's still one thing I want: your exact face in the moment you realize you can't control me.
It's almost there.
Tight lips, tired eyes, the jaw searching for stability.
How beautiful you are when you lose with style.
"Do you know the difference between you and me?"
I ask, as though about to give a lesson you won't forget.
"You believe words change things."
A pause. I want to taste your breath.
"I do the opposite: I change things first, then invent the words."
The light turns green again: the crowd has thinned.
We are almost alone at the edge of the sidewalk, like two last actors after the audience has left.
I shift a step away, that exact distance that gives you neither respite nor contact.
"So?"
I provoke you softly.
"Do you want to tell me go away?"
I say it slowly, like unrolling a ribbon.
"Or do you want to tell me stay?"
I give you both ropes, one for each hand.
I know both cut.
Your tongue wets your lip.
You don't speak.
Your eyes, though, say one thing to me and another to the world.
To me: I'm afraid.
To the world: I'm fine.
I take the one that's mine.
Fear has always been our bread.
I lean in only with sound, once more, the last time for this scene.
"See you soon, darling."
It's not a promise.
It's not a threat.
It's the shape I prefer to give the future: a smile with the teeth covered.
I turn half a circle, then another half.
I let my shadow slip off your skin.
I don't look back — I don't need to.
I know exactly what you're doing with your head, your stomach, your heart at the instant I lose definition among the passersby.
You cling to normality like to a handrail on an escalator.
The problem, darling, is that the entire shopping mall is mine.
I walk.
I don't run.
I leave behind the red, the green, the electric hum, the sour coffee, the impatient dog, the child with his kite that doesn't know how to fly.
I carry with me your half-stumble, the wrinkle of an eyebrow, the word "please," the way you kept your back straight when you wanted to bend.
Small invisible trophies that jingle in my head.
Oooh~, and what a full silence there is, now, inside me.
It's not peace.
Peace doesn't exist.
It's the echo of a just–emptied theatre, with dust in the air and two chairs moved out of place.
The audience has gone, but the stage still vibrates.
It's the moment I prefer.
I haven't told you everything, of course.
I haven't told you the "why".
It wasn't necessary.
The why changes.
Today I wanted to see how high you keep your chin.
Tomorrow, who knows.
Maybe I'll want to see how far your breath sinks.
Maybe I'll want nothing.
Maybe I'll want everything.
And you?
You'll want to forget.
You'll make an inventory of the small normal details and build a wall out of them.
Don't worry: I'll come with fake flowers and a marker, we'll draw the cracks together.
Hihi~
***
For now, enough.
The game feeds on hunger, not on satiety.
I leave you with questions without answers and answers without questions.
I leave you the word maybe.
And I take it with me.
When I feel like seeing what has grown, I'll return.
Or not.
Oooh~, how sweet, to have this luxury.
I disappear into the crowd.
A gesture.
Nothing.
And yet you'll feel it for hours, for days.
Not because I touched you — I didn't.
But because I pressed a finger on the spot where no one sees.
Ex.
What a word!
Keep it there, if you need it.
Hold it in your mouth like a toothpick.
I prefer mine: spectacle.
As long as you're applauding inside, it isn't over.
And you're already clapping without moving your fingers.
See you soon.
Or now.
It's the same thing, when the distance is made by me.