He would not have her while I breathed. He was a vile poison and she was life itself. What do I say about my love, my partner, my sacred? How do I make you see her as I do? Well, I can’t. I will fail you if you try to look through my eyes. But I will try to serve her and you with a telling of the us before she knew me.
The first time that I saw her, she was walking to one of her classes. She was dressed like a hippie girl. Her shirt was thin and flowing, her pants baggy and flopping. She was talking to one of her friends and she was looking down. I noticed her out the corner of my eye and felt a shiver run up my spine. I looked straight at her just as she was lifting her face, turning to look at the one she was talking to. Her hair blew back and her smile burst into the hallway. I dropped whatever it was that I was holding and stepped on it while walking out in front of her to grab her and kiss her. I stumbled and she slipped past me.
I followed. She laughed. It was quiet and deep. It was innocent and wonderful, and I loved her. I reached out to touch her hair and Guardian stopped me. Informer let us know that we were running short on time to get to our own class, and then it started to dawn on me that I was in school, and it started to dawn on me that I had not said anything to her. I didn’t even know her name. She had a friend, she was talking to her friend. Could I venture out and find this friend and search for a name? I thought maybe that was the thing to do, but I hadn’t even seen her friend. Her friend had barely been there at all.
Such innocence. Such bright and flourishing innocence. Had a rough thought ever touched her? Had an evil deed ever been done in her world? She was too much for me then. I thought about her all day. I saw her once again that day. She was sitting in a hallway after school, in the center of the hall way, with cheerleaders, coloring a banner. It was so fitting for her to be there with them. She was one to spur on life. She was one to encourage the day to bloom.
I took a picture of her there in my mind and I still have it up.
Then he saw her. It was a few days later and she walked into a class that he was in. He was reading a book and he looked up at her as she was bending over. He liked what he saw and wanted her. Suddenly my head was filled with him doing devious things to her. He wanted her and he thought about her in ways that hurt my soul. I ran from her every time that I saw her from that day on. She would show up in the foyer of the school and I would shut her out of my mind. I would go into the library or down into the lunchroom. I would flee whenever I saw her, because I couldn’t bear the way that he saw her.
That was when I decided he would never have her. I distracted him with other girls. I threw him at them and created things for him to say to woo them and wow them. I kept him as busy as I could. I gave him vivid dreams of other girls to keep him away from thoughts of her. I dedicated myself to her safety. But I longed for her. Her smile was the sun and I would bloom when I was around it. I heard her name and used it to settle myself when I was upset and to cleanse myself when I was depressed.
She started dating a friend of mine, and I felt safe. I could look at her again. I could think about her as much as I wanted to. So he took notice of her being with my friend and he laughed. He had wasted his time and she was with someone that he couldn’t fight for her. He moved on.
This was a dance we did the entire time we were in school. For years I kept him too busy to look around for her unless she was dating one of his friends. Then I would let him look. And again his mind would take her to dark and horrid acts of flesh and debauchery. He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t see her for what she was. And what was she? What was he missing? She was light. It was that simple. She was something as pure and true as light. There is nothing more pristine, nothing more nurturing.
I was gone when she walked into our lives, when he finally reached out for her and took her. I was busy with another world. I was creating art for my friends Ryan and Travis, living in a world of fantasy. He had snagged her, and when I found out, I was instantly enraged. It took me days to calm down, to realize that I too could be in her life now, and that I could work to keep her safe from him.
I remember when it hit me that I would get to kiss her. I wanted it then. I craved it immediately. I wanted her to be right there with me. But she was gone. She was out of town at her sister’s in New York. I couldn’t have her, so I reached out and touched her in the only way I could. I sent her flowers to remind her that I was waiting for her.
I had loved her for years. I remember looking at her when she came to my house upon her return to town. I remember the look on her face when she was sitting on my lap and she was about to kiss me. There was the light that I had bloomed for for so long. She touched the side of my face and I looked up into her eyes. She was shining. I couldn’t do it. I just watched as she kissed him. I eased into her then. Feeling the way her breath felt against my skin. Feeling the weight of her on my lap. Feeling the way her lips touched mine and finally I was kissing her. Slowly it came to me that she was mine. It came like a sunrise, slow at first, then suddenly I was squinting in the bright of the fact that she had finally come to me. She pulled back away from me and looked me in the eye. She smiled again.
I said “Welcome home.”
—Artist
Jesse Teller 