To One I Love.

Dear Crinkle,

I stalk you: shamefully, obsessively, denying it to everyone but my best friend, but eyes wide and heart open. There is something in the cut of your hair and the lines of your back that strikes the strings of my heart, and there are eerie similarities in the way our minds think. I love the dreamer soul in you that is restrained with numbers and brains and facts. I love that you would never cheat on your significant other; if I thought you capable of it, I wouldn’t feel so strongly.

I have raised you to the level of The Ideal. Every man suggested to me by friends, I line up with you and always, always, find him lacking. I love you—and yet I don’t. I am obsessed with your approval, and crave your attention—but not anything other than friendship. Your words and compliments give me a month’s worth of a high in one experience, and your smile makes me smile. And you’re always smiling at me, like you approve. I’ll not lie—it feels good.

Someday I hope to be loved in every way by someone like you—but not you. And because you are there, I am prevented from chasing passing fancies, like the Island Boy. They all pale in comparison to you. Perhaps my exacting standards will protect me, but that’s not my goal or desire. Right now I am content to rotate around you.

So pretty, so smart, such a waste of a young heart. What a pity, what a sham, what’s the matter with you, man? Don’t you see what’s wrong? Can’t you get it right—out of mind, and out of sight. Call on all your girls, don’t forget the boys; put a lid on all that noise.

I’m a satellite heart lost in the dark. I’m spun out so far. You stop, I start; but I’ll be true to you.

Staying true,
Irene.