Off The Deep End: The Keri Ramos Story

I am pulling a chair up to a table I wasn’t invited to.

I am pouring over the partial personality you’ve created and plastered around. I am retracing your digital footprints back as far as I can. I am reading things you never expected me to find; you didn’t know me back then, and now that you do know me, you’ve forgotten what you wrote on all those hazy Sundays.

I am getting creepy. I am unrelenting in my search. I just want to know you. I am searching for keys to locks you will never present to me.

I am stalking you. I am memorizing you. I want to know what makes you tick. I dissecting your past to figure out your present.

I realize that all of this is wrong. The irony is not lost on me that I could impress you by spending a fraction of my detective energy on simply fulfilling my academic obligations.

I am making things awkward. I can’t maintain eye contact through a ten minute conversation. I can recite your favorite songs. I can’t remember your office hours. I wait for you at places we never agreed to meet.

I am only halfway through my first beer. I am thirsty for you. I am going crazier than I am known to. And I am not sorry.

You are oblivious. You are gracious. You are so much better in my head.

So I am keeping you there. I am imagining time we will never spend together. I am making you a game. I am keeping you a secret. I run to you when I am stressed, which as of late, is always.

I won’t let it slip, I won’t show how much I know you without you knowing. I won’t even try to know you in any real sense now. It wouldn’t be as good.

I am sculpting you a pedestal out of ice under the new spring moon. I am forgetting that the sun will rise and destroy all my hard work.

Or maybe I am counting on it.

When I see you next under those fluorescent lights, you’ll be further away than ever.

I will welcome the distance.