Alive…
Maybe once though I never saw it that way, I existed, hell dead would have been a better word; I was born again of a girl, a woman, and for all I knew back then she too only existed. How do you define alive… when I first met her I would have said life was a beautiful thing and that’s what Christa is; beautiful and perfect though I never knew her breath, the beat of her heart, or the feeling of her love…
Yes I breathed though I didn’t want to, like I said I was already dead maybe that’s why I couldn’t kill myself, sleeping pills, regular meds, starvation, dehydration but somehow I remained; truth be told it was probably my own cowardice. My heart, how I swore I didn’t have one, lost it, gave it away, broken and yet it remained beating in my chest. As for my love I didn’t know what that word meant until her, sure I loved my big sister, my dog, and I had very fond feelings for a friend here or there but with Christa there was, let’s say sacrifice.
For all I knew she was not what she claimed to be but her singing, the way she spoke, the simple act of believing that she was somewhere in the world, oxygen filling her lungs as they did mine, we were connected. I was not her only suitor by any means, so many wanted to touch her but I wanted something deeper, from my heart to hers and I swore I had, with every smile, with her gratitude, the day she said my name; she became the reason. People say they love me but honestly what did love mean to them, as the song goes “get here if you can” a year and a half and if it had taken forever…
Alive… for a year and a half I was alive, not happy, maybe not even glad, but there was a reason; life is having a reason to die. Christa was my life, indeed love was my life but with or without such a reason… I died.
Online…
I’ve always been, strange to think that no one cared to know me in the world I walked in but in this place, the place I loved, that I was at home in than anywhere, I was invisible. “If I was invisible” though I’m not anymore and Christa never was of course this is how I found her and if this is how it had ended… before a year and a half went by.
Who am I… “I’m not lost, just undiscovered” I will be the first to admit that I was still discovering me but what many took as embarrassment, shame, and the simple truth of my face, I’d like to think I was only a boy in love. I was who I wanted to be on YouTube, Facebook, Blogger, Triond, and Yahoo; hell I went by many names; I was a writer, a romantic, and a student of Sade if you will. You might know me as shame, maybe a psycho, maybe even a statistic if they have statistics for this sort of thing.
Who is she… Christa is an actress and a singer, this was long before I got to know her, an icon and an idol, a savior, my last addiction, and there was a time I wished she was just another girl. When I first saw her she was a girl on YouTube, she danced, she sang, she spoke but yes it was the sex appeal; so why did I see more, I saw the truth and like everyone else I chose to ignore it, why, no reason and every. Now she’s missing, well not missing we’re all somewhere right, in word, in memory, hell in the news…
I suppose I won’t be going anywhere as long as there’s power, satellites, someone who remembers man’s inhumanity to man; I’m an icon in my own right, just like Christa, just like Sade. As long as people remember pretty girls, as long as they remember love, or maybe just lonely perverts looking for a fix, well she’ll be there.
Offline…
It’s a disease this thing called love, more like a computer virus, but no one understands the intricacies of the program I created; hands that created such but could never touch Christa. What about the heart that she had stilled, the boy she had killed, and the feelings all too real that I couldn’t just turn off.
Who I was online is who they wanted to become offline; if it hadn’t been Christa, if it had been any other girl I might have been proud; I might have allowed them to do such things to her. I lived my life online and anyone who knew me knew that such a life had only been created because of Christa; the program I designed would never allow such a thing. I had never been so close to her until the day I died and the day she almost died, if I had only known then that my love for her would never die.
That it could not be shutdown like the factory equipment that had torn her assailants to shreds, the silence almost deafening except for the bloody drops that fell from everywhere. Could not be turned off like the lights; I could see more of her than I had ever dared dream while I was alive. Love cannot be set free… because for a moment never in a year and a half, not at the moment I had died but the moment I saved her if that is what it took she loved me and I could not give that up.
With all that I am that she would never feel, like this I wanted to comfort her to love her as she sat there against the doors, clothing torn, and tears streaming down her face, knowing that she would never be found in time. As if she had been in time to stop me, to save me again like she once had but I wasn’t going away, not again.
Off… Live
Ghost or the machine if anything he is only a man but being a better man than most didn’t promise him the girl as he watched his ex-girlfriend Charlotte and the words “isn’t this what you wanted” appear on screen. Is this love he thinks watching his former lover violated on screen; the word “More” he presses without hesitation.
Beside the video of Charlotte more videos appear… ads, one of a girl named Gwendolyn her face lost in ecstasy. Another one of Becky, dancing in her cheerleader outfit her fingers beckoning him to click on her. There was another of Danica in her schoolgirl uniform; a cadre of would be lovers, though not one of them was real, not a one could match his Charlotte.
“Love Cannot Be Shutdown” the computer speaks and the man jumps from his chair; a trick, a virus, just a computer program and yet it showed him his love. “Who are you?” he blurts out as a picture appears onscreen of a dead man and a former missing girl he once watched; SensualChrista they had once called her. They were lost in each others’ eyes, holding each other close, and the picture morphs into that of him and Charlotte.
He clicks on the picture and an address appears and he copies it knowing that he will be reunited with his love soon enough. Turning the computer off he turns his back rushing out of the room not noticing the glow return to the screen and the eyes that have begun to follow him.
Copyright © 2011, Will A. Bradford Jr. All rights reserved.