oh how she blushes

owen.

where do i even begin?

owen was, and remains to this day, a sly devil. 

at first it's charming. absolutely charming. you fall down the path of thinking you love someone. if making girls fall was an art form, owen was the picasso, van gogh, gauguin, rembrandt, monet.

sure, it hurts afterwards. but when i was falling for that artful con? oh, i saw the world in glasses tinted with crystals. it felt like my world was morphing into colors and scents and sounds that i couldn't even imagine. 

when we talked, owen painted deep coquelicot poppies on my cheeks. they bloomed with each tantalizing utterance he spoke. i wanted to scoop up his sweet eburnean words and drink them out of champagne flutes. he was so so smart - every word seemed like a sudden paroxysm of wisdom and i yearned to keep them all locked away for my own sake. 

when i was around him, i felt all of the happiness of a six year old. i loved running alongside him on the hardened streets of rock. looking out at the mountains and thinking about the future. drinking sugar riddled drinks and watching boats out in the harbors. his gorgeous eyes reflected the water, and they twinkled (god, what a cliché!) as he spoke about anything and everything. 

his emotions fluctuated and i wished i was able to capture all of them. the amaranth tones of his anger. the periwinkle calm. his rare heliotrope laughter that spilled out in a mess, like wine out of a glass. the creamy saffron happiness that radiated out from his face. to be fair, it was always a bit of a gamble being around owen. i never knew what he'd be like that day. but it was a game that i liked to play, so i kept rolling the dice, playing my cards, spitting out my chips. 

so that's the first part. charming, isn't it? any girl would kill to have her world changed and twisted and folded for the feelings you get around owen. but then he starts to roll all of the dice. he plays all of the cards. you're no longer the house - he is. and the house always wins.

i didn't want to play anymore. so i got out. packed up the bags. put away the money, the memories. i don't look back.