Adrian

By my desk. Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash

And while awaiting what ought to have happened between you and him, you stared into his eyes, realizing you would never be able to kiss him.

You asked yourself.

— Will we always be confined and limited to this?

And immediately afterwards you responded.

— Yes.

You are crying for this and at the same time despite of it, for this brings you closer to him, but only so much joy can it bring, and that it does in a bittersweet fashion, insofar as it is a painful reminder of the impossible; it is and will always be impossible for you to touch him.

He’s smiling, with his large green eyes, his perfectly shaped nose between them eyes, and his lips, which are just of the perfect depth and curvature of which the upper one is just subtly larger than the lower one, bringing some uncanny equilibrium and solidness to his sharp pretty face; not even your favorite picture of him.

— Adrian

You gasp secretly, hiding the air from yourself and God.

The walls all listen.

Your favorite picture of him has him looking away with a sad overtone and underneath a gray sky. His curly hair glows under such illumination provided by the sun being projected subtly from beyond the clouds; a rumor of light.

You wish you could just find each other; a careless stumble on the street, perfectly incidental. Find each other’s lips and into a cold night. Yet you know this and so much more to be but a crazy dream of an unbalanced individual.

But what if you are balanced?

— No, I can’t be.

What if this is all okay and as it should be?

— Ahh.

What if you don’t need to pull the trigger?

— Adrian.

You gasp again, this time letting the sound drop into an untold abyss. And because you’re unsure of yourself and your love.

— Adrian.

Borderline crying, as one can tell by your voice cracking. All moving fast and you realize that might not even be his name, after all you’ve told him your name is Victor even though it is really Louis.

— Might he not be from London?

You follow.

— Yes, and what the fuck does that matter?

You’ve also told him you’re from Paris while you’re from Lyon yet it makes no difference, for you are as close and far away from him regardless of where he or you might reside ultimately, even if it might be next door.

— Tokyo, Ankara, or Madrid. All the same.

You then proceed with similar despair.

— What does he want from me? Why would he keep sending me letters? Can’t he stop? Can’t I stop? Why can’t he see what I see?

And this moment turns extremely real, your feet get anchored strongly onto the stone-brick floor, right in front of the church you’re looking closely towards. You feel each ornamentation from the tall and gothic facade as if it were part of you; the air caressing the hard stone.

And it becomes all too weird and into oblivion once you realize you are not there, but you get transported inside, and a stone virgin Mary is looking at you with a sight that could easily weigh a hundred pounds.

Then you’re back home.

— Does he love me? Do I love him? Can I?

You had been looking for something like this for quite sometime now. An infatuation, real love. What you needed, or so you thought, for now that it is here, you question yourself.

— Is this worth it? Is this really what I wanted? A man?

You wanted someone to love and it has turned on you.

— You fool, Louis.

You’ve always been a fool, pushing to be different in the struggle to fit in.

Then comes the laughter.

— The full fool! Yeah! Not but what I am to be precise! The fooled fool, of contradictions that is.

You continue with a buffoon tone.

— Dream peace and seek war. You love him Louis. But would you want him to love you back?

And the joke turns sad as told by your own voice, cracking again after a pause.

— Knowing how bad you could hurt him… Louis?

The world has turned on you…

— What do you fucking want Louis!?

…And it’s a fight you cannot avoid any longer.

— What’s left of me?

Praise authenticity, push to be someone other than yourself. You’ve never liked being yourself, and probably you’ve never truly been. And that might just be true not only of yourself but of all other you might have been.

— Nothing.

You confess with reluctance, and go on.

— Do I own my feelings? Do I have to?

Then it comes.

— No! I disown you! Dammed are you feelings, killers of the virtuous man, turning him but sinful.

— But then what is man other than his feelings? And as such, can one really disown them, or might it be the other way around?

You realize.

— But if I cannot disown them and they belong only to you, what is there of difference between what you are and what you feel?

— And if there’s only but what I feel.

And the ungrateful name comes again.

— Adrian.

— Adrian.

And you keep touching your neck; caressing it slowly.

— Adrian!

You break into tears. What’s the power of that name?

Then your finger goes slowly in between your lips and you close your eyes.

— I am yours. But please don’t be mine. I love you to much for that…

That is not your hand any longer, at least fully for it was, if only for a second, his.

It is late you realize and open your eyes.

Adrian has left the room.

— Time to sleep.

Your proceed to pour the rest of your coffee to the plant sitting next to you and go on to your nightly routine, which you know so well and reattaches you to your past, yourself and the world, and this time also to your future, for this time you also carefully leave the gun.

And left it is but into your mouth and after the bang one couldn’t hear but the sound of the thousands of birds now flying, reminiscent of the man that used to be and was only for a second, for it was only a second he dared to be himself or, to put more precisely, dared himself to be.

And Adrian woke up on the streets of Barcelona, it was 4:12 am.

Strawberry fields forever.