Oh How Nice it Would Be

I watched as you walked by, had to double check if it was you. You were walking by a yellow brick wall, just the opposite side of the street as me. The sun shined down on your black hair that brushed by your eyes and tinted it brown. Wind blew orange autumn leaves into your hair and I watched as you plucked them out, one by one. You had your guitar in your left hand and brushed the hair out of your eyes with your right. As I stared unintentionally, we met each other's gaze. Your green eyes felt like comfortably laying in a warm field of grass with no worries in the world at all. We both looked away after a split second, but I wondered how you saw me in that moment. Did you remember me, recognize me? Or was I just a stranger that you happened to make eye contact with. I wonder what's running through your mind.

How nice would it be if time would stop right now, just for the two of us. Everyone else would float and dissolve into the blue sky, into a different stream of consciousness, into a better life. Then, it would be just you and me. We would go on a walk, get coffee, or do anything you would like. We would have all the time in the world for it now anyways. I would start by apologizing for reading your diary 4 years ago. I'd explain how my curiosity got the best of me when the little black book was just sitting on the table, waiting to be opened, waiting to be picked up, to be read. I really wish I had not. I would ask you if you meant what you wrote. If you really loved another girl so much more and liked me just fine. If she really made your heart flutter and your stomach fill with butterflies just with the thought of her just like the thought of you does to me. I would ask if you still felt that way for her now even now. If you still did, I really wouldn't mind, maybe just a little, but it would be worth it, just to stay by your side. Oh, how nice it would be, to just sit in a room and talk to you for hours. You would babble on about music and anything else you wanted to, and I would listen to your voice echo across the room. I'm not good at expressing anything in my head at all so I would tell you the most abstract ideas and you'd somehow understand every word that came out of my mouth. Or we could just sit in silence, enjoy each other's company, enjoy the scenery of a cold, but pretty autumn day together. I would ask you if you remembered the plan that I had told you, how it failed. How I had planned, that when I turned 24, if I had accomplished nothing of value, and I never would anytime in the future, then I would gamble all my money away and take my own life. How I'm 24 now and my plan failed. I made more instead of losing it. A lot more, much much more, $20,000 dollars to be exact. I'd breakdown and start crying because this wasn't the way the plan was supposed to go, I was supposed to be dead by now. You would hold me in your arms, comfort me again, tell me that maybe it was a a sign, a sign that we were supposed to meet again. You would tell a joke; I would start laughing and I would forget about the tears.

Even if you didn't remember me at all, that would be fine. I would pretend not to know you either, and I would be able to restart. I would know what to and what not to say. Then maybe for once I could impress you and you would like the me better now than the me you didn't remember, the one you had met the first time. I would keep it a secret to myself that when you used to just say a simple hello to me, my day would brighten up and a smile would instantly flash across my face. I would keep it a secret to myself that when you weren’t around my joy sucked lifestyle would return, and I would accomplish nothing each day. I would keep it a secret to myself that when you weren’t around, I would pretend that you were there. I would look over to an imaginary figure and talk to a pretend you. I would keep it a secret that it began to happen so much that it became unintentional, and that I found myself laughing at something you would say in my head.

Oh it would be so nice. It would be so nice if either of these scenarios were to happen, but they did not. I opened my eyes and you were still there, but so was everyone else. Time had not stopped and you were still opposite the street of me, but you were waiting for someone now. She ran up to you. Her blonde hair flowed softly through the wind and she sparkled in the sunshine. She stood out compared to everyone else around, just like you had written in your black notebook 4 years ago. I watched as you smiled and looked at her in a way I had never seen you look at anyone else before. It was the way I would look at you. Your smile widened as you grabbed her hand and walked away from me. I watched as you walked farther and farther away. Farther away from me and closer to her. 10 feet away, 25 feet away, 35 feet away, then you turned the corner with her, and you were gone. Worst part is it’s not even her fault, or yours. Just mine, always mine, not good enough yet. Oh, how nice it could be if you were holding my hand. We would walk back to my rundown apartment and think of the ways we would spend the money I just won. But it is not nice at all. I’m walking back to my rundown apartment without you again with a large sum of money that I do not want even in the tiniest bit. I’m walking back to my rundown apartment, still wanting to die, still planning to gamble all my money away, but not entirely sure what to do still.