Expectations

I never meant to fall in love with you

I was waiting, saving myself like leftovers from the time you threw that party and not enough people came for how much food you had

Those leftovers rotted in the fridge, waiting to be eaten by someone who wanted them

Needed them

I never thought I needed you

But now I realize you are like my bookshelf

You hold all my favorite things

All my favorite words and all my favorite endings

There are some books that I haven’t read yet that I plan to read soon

I keep them on the top shelf

Because either way, when the times comes, I will have to reach for them

Going to ridiculous lengths just to grasp the spine of something that may or may not be worth my time

That may or may not change my life

I keep all of them, just in case

I used to think the air I breathe should be a museum

Where everything that goes into it should be beautiful

Things that people want to hear

Words that make a difference

I used to think

“when I have someone to breathe to

I’m gonna treat their ears like the goddamn Louvre

Only the best of the best will bounce off their eardrums

They will always have a beautiful sentence to chew on”

But now that I’m with you,

Every breath I take contains a million words that mean nothing

They crowd your brain like a landfill

But I can’t stop talking

For some reason my mouth thinks you need a million works of s****y art to fill your walls

And even though they’re running out of space

You welcome every one as if it’s the Mona Lisa

I used to think when I saw my true love

The moment would be perfect

I thought she would be coated in a spotlight from the sun

Skin glistening and eyes glowing

I thought we would lock eyes and it would all be over

My life would be changed and I would spend the rest of it chasing after her

But when I saw you I didn’t immediately change

Nothing happened at first

Because I didn’t expect a cute face and a rushed introduction to turn into anything

But it did

We very slowly became what I never believed we could be

We became closer than the atoms of a water molecule

Holding onto each other as we fell through the endless sky

We didn’t worry about what would happen when we hit the ground

And we didn’t worry about the fading cloud above that had released us

We just felt the comfort of each other's embrace

And fell

I never meant to fall

I pictured my life to be lived in the heavens

Held by the clouds and living amongst them

Watching the sun come up and go down every day

Thinking that was enough

But when I met you, when we attached

Our weight pulled us away from my home

And that was when we fell

I never thought that I would be travelling in this direction

I told myself I never thought my leftovers would be eaten by someone like you

But actually

I was lying to myself

I was really thinking,

“I am never going to be eaten, period”

I thought I was never going to be needed or wanted

No one would open the refrigerator and see me in my little tupperware hiding in the back

Becoming less desirable every time someone decided they didn’t want me

But you did

I never meant to get eaten

I never meant to fall

But that was just because I didn’t know what it felt like to be your exhale and a single beat of your heart

I didn’t know what it felt like to plunge to my death

I didn’t know that the plunge would seem to last years

I didn’t know the very reason I fell would also be the reason I had company on the way down

I always expected to care if I fell

But none of my expectations seemed to live up to themselves