May Queen

I wasn’t jealous until I figured out how fucking cool she was. Really. We were all sitting there. Him. Me. Her. His her. His recent her.I had been his before but now I was mine and no one else’s and I was pretty much okay with the whole equation until she turned to me and made that joke. That really smart and sly joke. And handed me that book. Her book. She wrote it. I looked at it and knew it was written well. And I saw him give that look. This proud and giddy look and I searched my memory to remember if I had ever seen that look before. With me. Around me. Did he ever look that way around or about or thinking of or in the vicinity of me?
Except now. I mean. Now, in the vicinity of me…and her?
And I understood she was special. And I understood other things by contrast.
Yeah. That feeling. That drop. That blush. That sense of shift in which everyone’s rank and position changed, imperceptibly, to anyone but me.
In which I realized that something that was never going to last never really even existed. What is and what never should be.
See, it’s not that I wanted to be her. Or him. To have her. Or him.
None of that.

Maybe it I missed thinking I had had what I thought I had. Maybe I already missed that memory.

It wasn’t her. Really.

But her exceptional…exceptionality robbed me of excuses.

And the sudden weight of my irrelevance was almost crushing. The awareness of my bit part in a much larger play…See it’s not that I changed or he changed or she changed. But the context changed. The SCALE changed, and I saw myself one in a crowd, one of many in the sea.
And yes, it had nothing to do with me.
It really didn’t. I was every bit as beautiful and smart and incredible as I always was. I was still a cherished friend of his and many others. That still mattered. For what it was worth.

But, oh, sometimes we see ourselves just a little bit more precious. And this context creates the textures that affect our colors in ways we can’t even explain. And when we loose that feeling, that 3-D rendering of ourselves through another’s lent and perceived perceptions, there is a gap. It’s a sea of people are you are one in it and your short and it’s hard to tell where you are standing because all you see are backs of heads and it was much much easier when you had a ride on the platform.
See, it’s not that you wanted to be queen of the parade, but you kind of felt like you belonged somewhere on the float.