I don't mean to make you cry....

I didn’t really like it when she cried.

I just loved the way it made her look.

Her eyes were always vibrant.
But, God—God, when she cried…they sparkled.
Her cheeks would turn that perfect plum, that dangerous shade of blue-crimson.
She would push her hair out of her face: in futility.
It would fall back, frazzled, crazed.
Beautiful.

I would watch her, in her less-than-silent agony,
My eyes: absorbed, ablaze. Like a hawk.
Like a vulture.

She was so real.

So vulnerable, the conceptual putty in my hands.
Passionate, with her lips pushed lightly forward.
Almost in a kiss…

Part of me wanted to be that gleam at the tip of her eyelash.
A bigger part of me wanted to be the one to push the gleam, the tear, away.

But I couldn’t.
I couldn’t be the one who loved her.
I couldn’t love her and be the one that made her cry.

It wasn’t that I wanted to make her cry…
Really, it wasn’t.

But, to me….

That was when she was beautiful.