The prince was young, his biggest most glaring flaw. Never mind that he had no royal blood, no blood of any thick consistency. His blood had no potency, hardly the proper shade of blue it ought to be. Handsome to few, maybe more so in the rain when droplets covered a tired face in some thick mud — tragedy. Nature’s tears made his physiognomy more appealing, made him look gutted of emotion like a soldier returned from the trench. Handsome, sure but not princely. He begot no poetry, no song, and the stories told about him denounced the title altogether. I was that would be prince. I wore a void for a crown. Sirens serenaded the halls of paintings bleeding out color until they became noir and washed out. Their songs to me were as unnoticeable as a bird’s chirp or wind’s howl. I often dripped unto pages written in a way that no one could understand. I was an unapologetic teenager making war against chemicals attempting to claim my malleable personality. The sun shone and it rained. The light was on and it was still dark. I had pros and then had poetry blended into my tongue, then dripped to the rhythm of a shocked heart beat. Ever lose the words? Try to speak, say something, and anything to be given only a sharp inhale. Teen years, man did I find them bleak.
I often found my thoughts feeling deeper than a galaxy’s color, though as I grew older I realized they were puddle deep. Too often I found myself questioning if beauty were real. Silly to ponder, for if beauty isn’t real, then why does its color gloss and shine over trees, roses, and flowers? Must it be true if nature gives it form and purpose among the variety of life? My mind once the sour, unrefined wine has aged nicely. No better example of my unripe mind was found then what happened at a coffee shop, seeing, claiming, and losing an instant crush.
I saw a girl I fancied a woman. Rose-quartz was strung by chain to make a necklace, one that hung like a picture to her skin. I stared too long, too personally at her. Behind both green marbles that glimmered like sunlight off a lake Fourth of July boomed and exploded in technicolor. I was entranced in the dust and smoke of a gaze coming and going like sound booming over a mountain. In caverns massive and graves amassed did a spark fling itself.
At summer in a coffee-shop did I meet that quick glance, with sun, shine, and green glow did I know I was hooked. I would meet those eyes again with a bad moon highlighted by navy. Different sight to stir a different conglomerate of pain.
I didn’t know her, not a name, and not a voice did I know. Even after I still do not know her name, so I’ll call her Mera. Mera, a girl with a rose-quartz necklace. Mera glanced back, our eyes met a moment, though awkwardly. The Fourth of July vision I conjured in milliseconds passed on like the day after’s smoke. Mine bolted away, but I was already eager to look back. Already wanted the fireworks once more. I whistled some pop tune, face was drenched in a guilty red blush. My cheeks and her Mera’s hair were of the same pallet. It was not a motherly intended kind of red, it was the beauty industry’s red, vibrant red. Bold. Striking. Flamboyant. Dark. Fierce…. I was a painted youth from high school, head turned away knowing that she noticed my eyes. I think she pretended not too. Mera, had caught me. She wore a denim jacket, unbuttoned, worn red inside — it looked soft. I remember the green eyes distinctively, the kind of green that knew only sunshine; never rain and never dark. Mera, a woman I saw once, and would not see again. That is what is like to be that princely teenager. I made each small gesture into mountainous acts that could never measure up. They were a chemical reaction doomed to corrode, and not built to last.
