Poetry by Cynthia Wang

Edited by Annika Lee

I wonder.
I dream.
I think.

That I was never not in love with you.

I had flushed cheeks and a racing heart. I was in love with you the same way I
        had always been—
foolishly, stupidly, moronically. 

But it had been my rose-tinted lenses—the rosy retrospection that you had
        loved me back. You gave                                                                                                   things to me that you gave no one else, you stood by me in all our photos, you
        talked to me first when you                                                                                               saw me amongst a crowd. 

I showed you how to rest your tongue behind your bottom teeth and sing like a   songbird.
I showed you how to sight read the notes on my laptop, 
I showed you how a siren would sing—secretly praying that you would fall for
        my voice the same

And in return, you blinded your better judgement to send me textbooks that I
        couldn’t afford,
And in return, you sat next to me whenever it seemed that I was alone in our
        class,
And in return, your lovestruck gaze was reserved for me and only me

My rose-tinted lenses were glorious.
So I keep them on.

You tossed me pens in class when I forgot mine,
You ripped sheets of paper from your notebook when I ran out,
And your eyes trailed to the side as you let me copy your homework—a luxury
        no one else received

So, for your declaration of love for me, I dedicated each win on the stage to you         —
Each time I sang a song, I sang with you in my mind, mind spiraling as I swore
        you loved me back—
So, when I got back, you would ask me how it went, and I would tell you, but
        never the truth—
After all, I could never tell you that you were my love in all the Italian operas.

My roses tinted lenses were pink like my cheeks,
So I kept them on, vision blurry without it.

When I called you in the dead of night,
When I laughed and you laughed with me,
When your nickname was mine and mine only,
You had loved me in my mind.

Your voice rung on the line as my heart raced in my ears,
You bent over in laughter as a coy joke slipped past my lips, 
Your head turned only when I called you by nickname,
So to me, you had loved me.

My glasses told me you stole glances the same way I did.
My glasses told me that I was loved back.
So I keep them on.

When you had ignored others for me—the way that someone as foolish as I
        would have for you, I thought
you loved me as one would love a lover. When your fingers brushed mine under
        the table in class, I
thought you would pull me into the hall and love me as I loved you.

I wondered.
I dreamt.
I thought,
that you would love me the same way I loved you. 

Perhaps it had been foolish,
but the lenses told me you loved me,
so I kept them on. 

But you did not.

There was no love at the start, and there is no love in the end
I know that you don’t love me.

So I take them off—for a moment, a breath of time, and a flicker of light.

To you, our calls were formalities,
To you, I had just said something funny.
To you, your answering to your nickname was a habit.
I was simply a good friend.

Reality is much worse knowing I was nothing to you.

So I slide the glasses back on with flushed cheeks and a racing heart, still
        somewhere in the past—in love
with you foolishly, stupidly, moronically. The same way I looked at you in the
        past, because even now, I
like you unwisely.

Even now, blinking at you as you run your thoughts through me at the study
        room, I keep the lenses on.
Because I am pathetic for letting these feelings carry on so long.
I am pathetic for choosing a school because you chose it.

Because even with the sun in my eyes as I stare up at you, lashes fluttering, 
And even as you stare back down at me, breathless from the brown in my eyes
        in the sun,
You do not love me.

You do not love me…
But it is a reality I refuse to believe.
So I put my glasses back on,
Reality blurry yet so incredibly clear.

And because the lenses tell me you love me,
I stay.

So I open my mouth, mic in front of my mouth and yours, 
And the two of us sing as I taught you, your voice drunkening like mine, but mine
        not like yours—
because you are the siren while I am the sailor, I fell for your song while you. not.
        mine.

My vision is pink, 
but my vision is clear, 
So I’ll stay until I can’t anymore, 

Because maybe,
oh, maybe,
you’ll love me back if I do.

Because I think,
I dream,
I wonder.

---

Artist Statement: rose tinted lenses was originally written during the beginning of the quarter while old feelings were bubbling up upon going to the same university as a middle school crush, and it ties into the theme of “reminiscing”, in which the main character of the poem reminisces all the times that she was treated with an abnormal amount of kindness compared to the rest of her peers at the time of growing up. Ultimately, the character in the poem is aware that these are simply hopeless wishes that are tinted pink through the romanticising view that she has given their relationship.