sometimes i thought you looked impossibly sad, or maybe just tired. i saw in you things that you brought out in me — melancholy, exhaustion, an almost machine-like consistency. those were the things i knew how to be. but you were also charismatic, impossible to read, impenetrable, happy-go-lucky, empathetic. things i didn't understand.

no matter how long i knew you, you still remained a mystery. i had an image of you in my mind, and every now and then you would say something that flipped the entire picture on its head. over and over again, and yet it never failed to surprise me. you weren't typical. you were wild, refined but eager to be yourself. introverted, gregarious, serious, goofy, laid-back, intense. you were everything, all at once, and i couldn't reconcile one thing with another.

maybe it made you two-faced. maybe you were just good at faking it. but to me, you were a marvel. a black box of intimidating stature. it was impossible to tell what you were thinking, and the longer i knew you the more murky you became. it was like searching for the surface of an ocean so dense with algae that no light filtered through. everywhere i turned, darkness.

i was blind.