CRUSH

by Davin Makokha

You have slipped on your rose-tinted glasses and imprisoned us both with your skewed perception. You, giddy and damn near paralysed by the kaleidoscope in your stomach and me reduced to nothing more than an object of desire. I catch the stolen clandestine looks when you think I’m occupied. I know every brush of your skin on mine is anything but inadvertent. You can arrange your body and expressions to appear casual all you want but you give yourself away when you hang onto my words as though I were Socrates in the agora. Hours of mulling over unrequited feelings may be tormenting but that does not compare to the agony of knowing an idealised version of me resides in your head. A beautiful, faultless creature on a pedestal. I go into my head looking for the bits of me you used to patch this irreproachable specimen. How long will it be before you realise your longing has clouded your judgement? While you wallow in your self-inflicted torment, hoping to be noticed, wishing that your desire spawns into something more, I dread the moment your rose-tinted glasses fall off and the resentment follows. I want to shake you awake and wave away this burdensome vision you have created so we can both be freed. I pray, at least as much as a heathen can, that you snuff out every desire to confess your feelings. To feel desired is one thing, to eliminate the possibility that it could be a figment of my imagination would destroy my last shred of sanity. Pine after me for as long as you need to but know one thing, it will pass.

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About the Writer

Davin (she/they) is a Kenyan student and writer who likes 80s sitcoms and early 2000s animations.