Fragmented Fascination

He could feel it, pulsating through his veins, getting pumped into his heart, blood, crimson red, her eyes piercing into his very being, intoxicating him with her steady gaze, that obtrusive deciphering they seemed to have been made for.

He held his breath, closing his eyes, holding onto that image, the resolute strength in her held his mind, “Fragmented Fascination” she had called it, and he smiled to himself once more.
“Maybe she was but a dream, illusive fairy, golden butterfly on elfin wings….” He opened his eyes, to the darkness of his room, and the chill tingling of his heart’s pearls, rolling down his cheeks.
He remembered exactly what she said to him:
“I trusted you, you were my best friend, how could you do this to me? I cried on your shoulder, cried over him, and you, you betrayed me”,
“But I couldn’t help it… I didn’t know..”
“You were my friend….”
“But I fell.., it wasn’t up to me”
“You can’t love me, it’s wrong… I can’t love, I’ve been hurt so many times before, I don’t want to hurt you…please, leave me here, and discover that you were blinded because you came too close to the light, you don’t love me”.
Every drop of blood in his veins froze with her gaze, as she continued:
“Don’t love me because you’re used to me, or because you pity me…” she said, then walked away.
His frozen blood now shattered into little fragments, each carrying an image of her.

Years passed, he didn’t know why he got out of bed every morning, he lived on plain stubbornness, not hope, he hated her blind pride, the pride which made her leave without a trace…he didn’t love her because she was familiar, or because he pitied her, he loved her because he just did.
He tried to track her down, but he knew he would never find her unless she wanted to be found.


She walked faster and faster, hoping the cold wind would freeze her tears and numb her heart, she cursed her pride, the fact that she loved him so much, her best friend for years, the icy wind burnt her cheeks, and chapped her lips, but she walked, not stopping till she reached the great oak, in the middle of the park, and rested in its shadow, sitting next to its mighty trunk.
She held her knees to her chest, and wept, mumbling broken sentences of his last poem:
“She will put her cold hands,envelope them in yours
All the while twittering, like an excited bird
And as you warm her hand and soul, your feelings heighten, soar
She will feel it in your gaze, and hence will come the words..” she stopped, her sobs took over from there… then, a voice reached her, continuing the poem:
"Pray dearest”, in her softest tones, "How am I to doubt,
That this is where my heart will always long to be"
And you shall say, complacently "How am I to live without
Your fervent love surrounding me?" “
in a moment, she thought the old tree had spoken, in warm gentle tones, but then she realized whose voice it was, it was his voice, the one who wrote the poem, she heard his footsteps, the footsteps which were imprinted in her memory, with every other detail….
He stood in front of her, for she had gotten up, she gazed into his lucid eyes, and saw the many tears they shed before, he knew that gaze well, and was glad she didn’t lose it with times past, he smiled and said “let me be the one to heal you, the way your gaze could always heal me….”
Her cheek once more met the warmth of his shoulder, only now, she cried for him.