Scratch Online

we’re laying on a hill because you said you were tired of walking and i lied and said i was too.  it doesn’t matter that i lied.  i always lie to you.  i don’t mean anything bad from it, i don’t.  if anything, i do it for you.  i like you a lot and i don’t want us to fight over the little things like sitting in the grass of a hill that overlooks nothing in particular because walking is tiresome and you just want to talk and i just want to listen.

but you stopped talking.  you said you didn’t feel like it any more.  and i lied and said i didn’t either.  and so you sat there, with your legs outstretched in the grass, and your back against a tree with your eyes closed.  and i sat across from you, watching as your chest rose and fell.  and you said i should talk and i lied and said that i didn’t have anything to say.

i knew you knew that i was lying, but you didn’t say anything and i didn’t say anything about you not saying anything either.  so we just sat there.  and the wind blew passed us, and the grass tickled and the sun shone and i still lied.

you asked me what i was thinking about and i lied and said i wasn’t thinking about anything.  but i was and it was you.  it’s been a long time since the days you accidentally took my green punch buggy toy.  but i thought about you then just as much as i do now.  but you would never know that.  and if you were to ask me about it, i know i would lie.  not because i want to, but because i would.

you pulled from your bag a blue kaleidoscope.  looking through it, you confessed your love.  for it.  you talked about seeing the world, reflected on so many mirrors, in so many ways, that it looked distorted.  that it looked like something more real than reality - a fractured world.

“it’s beautiful,” you said, eyes still pressed against the blue tube.  you looked at me through the kaleidoscope and, on my end, i could see the image of your half-brown, half-green eye distorted and refracted by mirrors upon mirrors.  “what do you see?” you asked me but i lied and said i didn’t see anything.

you handed me the kaleidoscope and told me to look through it.  you smiled at me your perfect straight smile and talked in your nice voice.  and you wiped your hands on your nice jeans and i looked at you and you looked at me and i didn’t smile.

i took the kaleidoscope in my hand.  i rolled it around in my palm, back and forth, back and forth.  it was warm from your bag and from the sun and from being in your hand.  i looked through it.  my eyes met the fractured reflection and i twirled it in my hand and i looked at different things and i watched the shapes change in front of me.

“it’s beautiful right?” you said, and i could tell from your nice voice that you were watching me and you were smiling and the breeze was still in your hair and the grass was still tickling you and i was still lying.

“yeah, it’s beautiful,” i muttered.  but i was lying.  i wasn’t talking about the kaleidoscope.  i wasn’t talking about the world reflected on mirrors reflected on other mirrors.  i wasn’t talking about the mess of shapes that changed and contorted within the blue tube pressed to my eye.

i was talking about you.