how am i supposed to know when it starts?

i think i know where i am.  but then i get distracted by the way your lips turn up when you look at my eyes.  and then my mind starts on a trail i never saw until i'm halfway down it and when i glance around i dont recognize anything, yet everything is familiar.  but everything is brighter this time, more vivid and real. like maybe i've seen a version of whatever this is before, but it was only an imitation and this is the real thing.  but i don't really know what's real, so i really couldn't tell you if this is legit or just a better knockoff than the last one.  

i say my thoughts out loud to other people hoping that they will make sense in the time between leaving my mouth and returning to my ears, like the journey through the air will act like developer on the film of my thoughts, producing a picture when the sound returns to my ears, to be processed by my brain again upon re-entry.  and i think they do, but then i feel your gaze, and when i look up all thoughts i was having get scattered by those eyes the color of the ocean, blue and green with a hint of gold.  and like the ocean they swallow me, and i don't want to break away, until i realize i think i was talking and trailed away mid-sentence.  so i blush and look away and tuck my hair behind my ear and try to remember what i was saying, hoping you don't notice how scattered i am, but at the same time hoping that you do.  and then right when i have almost recovered you reach for my hand and i'm gone again.

and it scares me, my complete lack of composure.  i'm good at the game face, the unaffected, unnerved persona that acts as a shield when i dont want people to get to close.  i'm antsy and you ask why, and i cant tell you that i'm worried you arent as affected by me as i am by you.  and i dont tell you how much i love it when your hand slides down my arm or you run your fingers through my hair.  i feel like you've shared more of yourself than i have let you see of me, which is strange because i want you to know me, but part of me is scared of giving that to you, because once you know that, you know me.  and that would make you one of four or five.  and that's a big deal.  so instead i smile and lean in to you and keep my thoughts behind the veil of my darkened eyelashes.