Broken Toys
"In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni."
You used to dream about talking bumblebees and skies the colour of sunflowers. Snowflakes danced with purple-striped zebras while twinkly stars shone up from the floor. We climbed rainbows, blew bubbles at the moon, and kissed until sunrise.
I had to leave you; I never want to let you go.
I want to kiss away all the pain and the hurt and the magic gone wrong. I want to change you back into freshman year-Willow, the sweet little geek I first met at that Wicca meeting all those years ago. You were so shy then, and so unsure of your power, but I knew even then, knew all along really, that you were so much more than me.
So much more, really, that it hurts.
Shopping, tomorrow, to dull the pain and change my wardrobe. Because everything, everything, I own smells of you. Oz would know, he always did, about your scent and its pull, he would understand my compulsion to burn my skirts, bodices, even my socks, to incinerate it all and start anew. Maybe I should call him, track him down in Tibet or Siberia; we could start a club.
Willow's bitter little exes, her broken toys.
You wouldn't know me, these days.
When you love something, Willow, you play with it in that relentless way a five-year old has, that intense ferocity that eventually causes matchbox cars to get flushed down the toilet and Barbie dolls to end up with spiky punk hairdos.
Black turtlenecks, dark blue jeans, a new pair of docs.
A haircut.
"Short," I tell the hairdresser, as she grimaces, "Shorter." A pixie cut, I think they call it, but you were always the pixie of our duo, not I. All sparkles and cute tee shirts and flirty glances, you were the one who flew to fairyland while I remained earthbound, waiting.
A pixie cut.
"She's trying," Dawn informs me, "so hard. She's getting better." Meaning, of course, that we should make up and get back together. Meaning that she can only take so much more of this, that she's lost too much already. I understand, so I only nod. "I'll think about it."
I'll think about it.
I'm always thinking, about you and us and the Scoobies, I'm always thinking about it.
I slurp my milkshake, strawberry like your hair, and Dawnie laughs.
We passed each other on campus today, and I only cried for an hour.