It’s sweet that I kissed your cheek, but what I wanted was full-on-the-lips kissing, the cheek was nice enough and all, but I still imagine tongues in each other’s mouths, don’t remember what it felt like with you, but I imagine. And I imagine holding hands at movies and while we drove down the road. I imagine I imagine many things that never existed. I imagine your hair all piled up on your head in the morning, and the time that I decided french toast would be good for several weekends. I imagine one million cigarettes on the front porch and a few hundred foot rubs that I could’ve done better, and I imagine the time we went to Italy in the summer and decided to stay in bed for one whole day. I imagine the day I proposed with the ring I thought to be ill-fated and you said yes and I imagine the time in late spring when we got married out by the river and we were barefoot. I imagine the kids, all off to college now, and retirement fast approaching, and possibly the cliche RV in the near future. I imagine, despite a full working furnace, and the thermostat turned up amply high, that the bed will be cold tonight, the pillow will...
It was down Moreland to McLendon some night and then a straight shot. Or before that there was always DeKalb Avenue involved. Or just down College from the place where you lived with your sister to that turn by the place where you sell hands and then working your way over in the truck with the love of Elvis to my place, or your place, or what would become ours. Or perhaps it is North on I-85 to SC exit #69. The business route, which used to be not the business route when I took it to see a woman that I only loved an iota compared to you. And then there’s a turn on Pine or some sort of street? And then on a Saint street? And then by the Quickie working the way back into the woods. Sylvan Court. Or it was further up I-85, for me always, for you after Christmas for a couple of years. Exit at East Club and then down, forking at Carpenter, and left on Cheek, then by the Church on another, and to the Dude Ranch. Did you think there would be cowboys everywhere? Or we could’ve taken Ponce to that little spur that takes you to Clifton and then a left, as soon as you see the traffic light ahead, onto the street with the good sledding hill – if it ever snowed – and right and up the hill. Or it could be down Briarcliff/Moreland and into the park on North and around the bend where you laugh because I always indicate when there’s only one way. Then there’s...
Seeing yourself in the face of the villain. All the while I thought I was, or wanted to be, the hero. The one who gets the girl. I guess I don’t even think too much of Winona Ryder anymore. I got older and she shoplifted and she can’t get a job in Hollywood to save her life, so our relationship is, for all intents and purposes, over. I guess there’s a demon inside of every Marlon Brando, Humphrey Bogart, Leopold Bloom. I imagine they try to do the right thing despite the fact that their mother’s held them too close to her chest. I am climbing a tree in this cold night, and the wind is blowing and I am looking down on the town without me. Jimmy Stewart. And there’s a baby being born at Athens Regional Hospital that could’ve been mine, in a different story. And people are coming home from Christmas shopping. There’s a light snow beginning to fall. I’m going to make it back down by morning, but for tonight I just like the view. Up here where I can be anything, or nothing, and no one comes or calls or expects or thinks one way or the other. It’s good to be but not be seen for a few moments. Sorry I didn’t live up to the billing. Roll...
days like today are so good, but so hard. Steve often asks me what it would be like to stop seeing you. It’s hard for me to imagine when he does ask me these things. The best word I can come up with is lonely. Even though I have all of these other friends around, none of them would make me feel lonely like you would, should we stop seeing/talking to each other. I know that we don’t feel the same about these things. Sometimes I think I am too available, possibly annoying, to you. That I should play hard(er) to get, but that would imply you are trying to get me, which you are not, the pursuit and persuasion is purely my territory. So yeah, I enjoy these days like today. Every minute of it. Mainly because there are few if any who get me like you do. Who already start laughing at something I am going to do, even before I do it. But I still think that I live in some fantasy world when it comes to seeing clearly what you are. Not that you aren’t wonderful, it’s just I find myself talking about you differently during therapy (if you think you are not a primary topic of discussion every Tuesday at noon, you would be mistaken). I feel at times like your mad at the world mentality is shaded more toward men than women. I feel like you think men are somewhat useless and disposable. I know you regard me highly, but I remember when you told me during the breakup about the stuff you...
I spend my days still spiraling about. I think of not getting married. Of what it would be like to not be married, to not have kids, to not take part in all of that. I feel that it is okay. I can live with that. I feel also that I am young enough to not have to work purely on that assumption just yet either. If you were to ask me when I met you, I would say we would’ve been pregnant twice over by now. We are still single and questioning and proper and interested. I think I preferred it when you called me in the middle of your drunken nights. I think I liked the idea that you needed, wanted, desired me in some way, even in that altered state.n I want to break into the Icehouse lofts and press you against a wall again. I think you not calling me now is probably better for me, but I still liked waking, or not, and simply walking to the phone. There was that one desperate night when you called from sparkle and told me that if I would come get you, you would marry me. My intellect would not let me make that second overnight trip, but sometimes I wonder if I should have. I know it would’ve been for all of the wrong reasons, or that’s what I am supposed to say, or at least some, but I do believe that it could’ve worked. I love you, I think you do me, and whereas that is not enough, it’s a better start than most marriages....
The trouble with us is that we can’t be the same persons we were. Like back when you carved our initials in the wet cement down by the architecture firm. Like when I was the maniacal free-spirit that you fell in love with while I was dating someone else. I couldn’t continue dating that other someone because I wanted you, to be with you. I know it’s strange. You wanted it to at the time, but we couldn’t remain those people, could we? The drinking, which was a novelty at first, wore thin on you. I guess it just wore me thin. I became so one-sided and hyper-emotional. I gave in to the worst tendencies, all the while begging you to save me. Was I changing or just revealing myself? I don’t really know. I like to think I knew you when I first met you, that the decision to drop so much and go headlong into that thing we had was made with perfect knowledge. You revealed yourself too. In so many beautiful and delightful ways, but in a few dark and horrifying ones as well. I try to keep the bad ones in mind too now as I continue trying to recover from the fallout. It keeps me in check when I want to idealize you, idealize what we were together. But oh, it’s the good things, the fun things that tend to create a chorus loud enough to drown those dark things out, and it is that sirens’ chorus that I become entranced by too often. Is it really trouble though, that we have changed? I...
It’s possible for me to be attracted to others, to feel a sexual impulse, to even like them as a personality, but I find it impossible to really feel a true intimacy with anyone, and I don’t seem to desire it with anyone other than you. It’s not hard to go through the motions for a little while, but eventually it starts to seem hollow, I feel trapped and don’t know how to get out. Perhaps this is how you felt that last year with me. I just feel that I didn’t do something right with the only person I seem to want to do it right with, and I finally feel like I am capable. I have to figure a way into relief soon. I am not getting any younger but the dreams are getting more vivid and they bring me to a different, new longing....
Two nights in Durham, three dreams about three other ex-girlfriends. Seems appropriates since I still save my daydreams mostly for you.
I don’t know what it is. Perhaps too much time alone over this weekend. I do know that part of it is that I am broke, and that being broke makes me feel immature, and angry. I know it also has to do with not hearing from CNN about the job, and that makes me feel like I am not good enough. I also know part of it is worrying about mom and what we will find out this week. I need to get home this coming weekend, but I am afraid of what I will be walking in on. I know I probably won’t even notice, but what will mom look like without her rib. I know it is not really logical and it makes no sense. I guess when I spend time with you sometimes, I feel like a failure too. I tend to think that all of this would be more bearable if you were still with me. I know that kind of thinking was part of the problem, and I also know that our relationship caused more problems than it solved, but somehow in my memory or fantasy of it, it seems like we gave each other strength to get through the hard times, to get through things just like these. I have been pretty good about not thinking about “me and you” and not wanting “me and you” again. But today was hard. Surely part of it is a very physical longing, but most of it is that you are still the person that I would prefer to spend time with the most. I...
The thing that I dream or fantasy about when I am prone to those things. I still remember you, living room floor, bedroom. I want you completely still.
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