Twilight storms and summer afternoons beneath the trees, all the green things in the world lit up and glowing softly like snow under the moon. Green is a warm shade of light, never lurid, always hauntingly familiar. Restlessly comfortable, the way rediscovered memories are, the way your heart knows they belong to you and your brain struggles to connect them to you. Time stands still in green light, waiting for the sky to burst or the sun to set. Moments clinging to each other, holding back like they do before a kiss. In the green light I am lying on the grass, wondering if it will rain on me, wondering if I am still alive or if time has stopped after all.
They prefer the air dry but I've always liked it when water makes it heavy, prepared for the storm.
You never did like me, tried to weed me out from the start. We each thought the other was naive. I'm still narcissistic enough to believe you're still the ignorant one, and I bet you feel exactly the same way. Familiar tension is almost comfortable.
We were in middle school so it was only natural for you to decide that shunning me was an acceptable solution to the problem of disliking my presence. Didn't really work, seeing as we were in all the same classes and had all the same friends, for three miserable years. But you kept trying to erase me, and I kept trying to rewrite your personality, and neither of us got anywhere until high school (or maybe God) dragged us apart and ended our hopeless efforts. Finally. We each got a chance to get away from the storms we'd been throwing ourselves into.
You know what the crazy part is? We didn't go anywhere. You were bulimic. I was depressed. Both of us, killing ourselves, because we spent so goddamn much time under the green sky that we forgot time hadn't paused and it was going to start pouring. Hell, maybe we didn't even forget at all. Maybe we felt so secure in that green glow that we didn't see the danger any more, or maybe the familiar danger was better than the unknown. The thing about the world when it's illuminated like that is that it's eerily beautiful. A siren, maybe, something we indulge in in spite of itself. An addiction.
Well it took me a while, but I finally got up and found shelter and I don't let myself get caught in hurricanes any more if I can help it. The occasional rain is inevitable but I'm free. I thought you might be too and I wondered where life had taken you. So I searched, and I found you. Lying in the grass under the heavy green sky, wondering if it would rain on you, wondering if you were still alive or if time had stopped after all.
"Storm's coming. You can come inside if you like," I offered. And you looked up at me and said, "You always did try to tell me what to do," and turned back to get lost in the lovely green glow of the sky.