I’m jealous of your first cup of tea, which gets to touch your lips before I do, when the sun hasn’t even risen yet (because you rise with it but you also race it, it can only see you when you’re ready). I’m jealous of your second cup of tea, which gets to follow you around all day, kiss your lips again and again, furtively, with people watching and without.

It seems it’s your only refuge, your one salvation. There’s no one there for you quite like tea is but I wish you’d come to me the way you run to it. At least I have the benefit of kissing you last, at night, after that last cup of tea, when the moon is out and we’re under covers, quiet.

Then one day you forgot it home. I woke and there it was, forlorn on the kitchen counter, looking like a lost pup. I don’t think I’ve ever moved so fast to get ready and jump in the first bus. The ride felt like it lasted an eternity, I could only imagine you sitting with that vacant look in your eyes you sometimes get, singing to yourself distractedly, your hand fiddling with empty air.

When I got to you, out of breath from running, your drink already cold in my hand, you were sitting, fiddling with a store bought cup of steaming tea and I felt stupid for not thinking about that. But you smiled at me like you hadn’t seen me in years so it didn’t matter.

“What a surprise,” you said.

“You forgot this,” I lifted the thermos to eye level, “and I figured you’d need it but, silly me, I forgot that—”

“That I could buy one?” you chuckled and rewarded me with a kiss. “Thank you.”

You forgot it again this morning and I have a text message from you, asking where I am.

You’ve pointed them out to me a few times.

“There,” you whisper. “This one.”

You told me they’re everywhere, easy to recognize, long haired, doe eyed, strange and so beautiful. I don’t see them the way you do, with the sea salt clinging to their skins and the crazy impossibility of their scales. Sometimes I think I’m seeing their algae tangled hair but that must only be the sun playing tricks on my imagination.

“I wish my hair grew out that shade of blue,” you sigh, leaning against the table.

I consider the girl again, her pale aquamarine hair piled atop her head in the messiest bun I’ve seen yet. She’s reading a book in her lap and frankly she reminds me of you. The way you disappear into other worlds as if they were your own, sitting like you belong to another place entirely, untouchable, exquisite.

“That would be interesting.” It’s a wonder you don’t hide gills between the gaps of your ribcage. “She reminds me of you.” For all I know, you hide a scaly second skin ready for escape somewhere.

You smile at me like I’ve said something silly. “How?”

It’s so hard to explain when I get so easily distracted by your face, your eyes which are always always full of stars and shadows. “Just…just you.”

Obviously, you don’t believe me. You have a cynical little smile I hate to love and you’re pulling at your hair just a little too hard. It always escalates so quickly within you but it always stays under. Like you have your own sea inside and everything just stops at the unfathomable bottom.

Enigmatic and beautiful, like the fairytale.

I wish I was able to tell you in pretty words and carefully constructed sentences but every time that I try, I get tongue-tied.

Chuckling, you straighten back in your seat. “You’re adorable.”

    It’s the 4am wake up, when everyone’s still asleep and we feel alone in the world. When you don’t bother shushing me because it’s too late to get decent sleep at this point but it’s still much too early to be up. When you curl up closer to me and I bury my nose in your neck just to breathe....
    It’s the way you get sometimes, eyes lost in nothing while your mind soars to your private skies. Sometimes, I wish I could follow you up there, walk through you to discover what it’s like to be on your mind all the time (I bet it’s wonderful). You know, I’m scared to lose you to that part of yourself. There’s a sea inside you and a land in your mind and I fear that they’ll take you away because they must please you more, they’re your creation.
    It’s those long stretches of day when I’m off and you’re not. When I wake to a cold bed and messed up sheets, the bathroom still humid from your passing and smelling like you with the volume turned up. A cup of tea drank since dawn standing on a corner of the counter, hastily set down when you ran out the door (it’s almost like I can see you, scarf around your neck trailing you outside, a page from your notebook fluttering to the ground).
    It’s the very rare times when I suffer from insomnia, the demons in my head, while you sleep, peaceful. But I guess they have their good side; I get to watch you unguarded. It’s always such a relief to see you completely relaxed, without the weight that seems to drag you down when you’re awake although watching you wake up has to be one of the most beautiful things in the world.
    It’s your breathing that doesn’t change when your eyes open, that small moment it takes before you realize that you’re back to reality. When you look up and realize I’m the first one awake and the sun might be out, though we don’t care, and you pull me back under, with you, just for a while because that’s how you like waking up, breathing me in and relearning me before taking on the world.
    However, it’s also when your eyes are screaming at me and you just won’t let me in, when you barricade yourself behind doors and earphones, holding yourself together by loose threads and duct-tape. When your body is marked up like you’re keeping score against your demons and my feelings seem to be anchors drowning you.
    It’s that one time you left for a whole week, without saying goodbye, and it almost killed me.