[Kaimee]: 5.Mixed Poetry&Prose.Winter bites your cheeks

You're faking it, and Winter bites your cheeks

"But I love you" and we see possibly the most pathetic moment of a young girl's life. Fuck no, I don't mean she's heart broken, just the opposite really.
She's pretending. and I really shouldn't have to explain that to you.
You're having that 2 second flash to a field somewhere, where you can scream in the sun and shout until your throat is raw that this is not who you are. And the topsy turvy vision is stumbling like the sepia cameraman fell over, because at about that point the flash falls apart, because you know you'll never really tell anyone. And you see grass stalks, burningly brittle and a whirl of too-blue sky and then you're back again, looking at me, listening to me tell you about yourself.
I know you just had it, that flash. You were probably wearing something white and flowing, the edges torn and muddied. You don't realise how symbolic you are. Cliched your mind should be shouting.

No, now, you see, we both know you're pretending. The problem is that you get a bit too caught up in the lie, until you can't sort out when you're pretending to care and when you do, because pretend is all there is.
Look at him, he took it too far. Slashed his skin and watched himself drain away in a huge moment of melodrama, got a bit caught up there in thinking he cared and didn't realise he didn't. Go on, step closer, stare at the little flecks in his eyes. Smell that mint still on his breath. Whoops, no breath right? Sorry.
But stare, look, see, can you see that little bit of shock as his expression started sliding off his face. He remembered just too late that it was all pretend. It's like when someone dies on reality tv.

Now you're standing here saying "But I love you!" and boo hoo, wa wa, you stare at me with your huge 17 year old eyes and let them fill with pop art tears, but your mascara doesn't run. I know you wont admit it, but I know you know it's fake.
You let me fuck you and kiss you and have you any which way I wanted because you're young. You're meant to be falling in love, and you meet a guy and he's got dark eyes and some part of you thinks "hey, what's wrong with me, why aren't I falling in love?" And so you start hanging out, and let yourself laugh at my jokes, we go on dates, and whisper confessions at 3am, all because that's the sort of thing you're supposed to do. And you start forgetting that it's all just play acting, you let yourself be that little girl in love.
But you know what? We all know it's not true. How pathetic is that?

We're going about leading little fake lives with little fake loves with little fake lives to little fake break, and the worst bit of it is that when you said that, you forgot, and you're remembering now that you don't really care but for that second, My (fake) God, you were pathetic. You were willing to be the saddest you've ever been over something you never even cared much about, simply because you forgot.

But none of it's real. You know what's real? That second when mister wrister over there put that mint in his mouth and felt it burn against his tongue and sucked the sweetness back and breathed it in. That single moment before he started thinking "hey, fresh breath", or even whether he worried about being found dead with a mint in his mouth (did he remember, do you think? Part of the plan at all?) that was real.
For that split second he wasn't pretending and seeing himself from outside.

So what do you have that's real? That moment alone in a clearing screaming up at the sky, letting the real you slam through? Oh yeah? You nod, but you haven't thought it through.
The cameraman doi. Your camera angle, the sepia tint, the eyes you're staring soulfully into as they masterfully fill with tears. I just don't care anymore. You know you're lying, and I know you don't love me. The same way I know that slut the other night didn't just want a fuck, she wanted to write a fuck into her own little script, thought that that's probably what should happen next, even if some part of her sat back and said "hey, I'd actually prefer to be standing barefoot in that silken dust back home, letting it sift betwen my toes". She's faking it too, only her story included pills and parties, whereas yours writes like teenage trash.
You're faking it, little girl. So what if I helped that other chick fake hers too. You're getting what you wanted, and now you've got another tragedy to write into the lines. He thought he loved you, and you thought you loved me.

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What I love is when the air is so cold my teeth hurt as I suck it in, that's something you didn't know.
And you, I remember way back before you decided you loved me, way back a million years ago when freckles weren't plastered over and the set arranged for your romance.
You had this look on your face just after you sneezed. I loved that.

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Piece © Kate-Aimee Conrick. All rights reserved!