The sky white-striped, bruised shins, the hot sun, old tunes permeating the air like an amber whistle, me thirsty, my head stuffed distinctly like it is when I'm sick or sad...
Details don't matter; I am biking 3 miles to surprise him. We exchange a half-hour of horrifying tenderness. I take another route home so things will not be exactly the way they used to be.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Rebellion
Today is Thursday and I am very close to someone I have loved for a long time. I’m not a musical man but my heart sings, well, hums maybe. Clichés are underrated in my opinion. Clichés become clichés because people understand them better than anything. In that way they are quite respectable.
I am indulgently dwelling on the image of her entrance. She pushes her way through the door quietly with a bottle of bubbly water in hand, wearing a long soft dress. I can tell she has a headache again because of the tension around her eyes. I always smell verbena when she is near but this is likely to be because of my imagination. The book in my hands feels suddenly too heavy. She scans the room for me and I am honored. What follows is the moment when our eyes meet after years apart but I haven’t been able to describe that yet.
It was challenging for me to contend with my love all this time. When I was younger love intimidated me and I tried to kill it. When that didn’t work I tried to abandon the part of myself where this love lived. Alcohol sufficed most of the time. Of course, since the entirety of my being was consumed by love this didn’t work either, but it took me much longer to realize that.
So I left, desperately. I ran as far away as I could, hoping that my love would starve. However, love is much like mold, thriving in warm dark places such as my heart, and was self-sufficient by the time I had left. She fretted, sending me letters that I burned in the envelope. I grew up and returned but only after I had wasted much time.
Now that I am older I am at peace with this love, finally, letting it take shelter within me. What fascinates me is the reason for its longevity in such harsh circumstances. She was young when I left and has changed twofold countless times, but even when she was almost completely different from herself I still loved her. I believe in a sort of jewel within her, an emerald perhaps; green is pure and fresh. It is almost religion to me and I praise it when I see it reflecting sunlight through her eyes. I think maybe I have loved that jewel for all this time, but being wiser now I understand that I can’t know anything for sure.
The phone shook in my hand when I called her to ask her to meet me and I felt like a schoolboy again. Any bookstore would have done but this one was perfect, an old one with musty titles, about to go out of business. I turned pages blindly for hours. I worried that too much time had passed, that I had pushed my chance out of my fingers. I kicked myself, cursed my stupidity, almost broken when she walked through the door.
My best attempt to describe the moment when our eyes met was that I died and saw the heaven that my religion had promised me. She smiled brilliantly and I slipped back to life. There is time yet.
I am indulgently dwelling on the image of her entrance. She pushes her way through the door quietly with a bottle of bubbly water in hand, wearing a long soft dress. I can tell she has a headache again because of the tension around her eyes. I always smell verbena when she is near but this is likely to be because of my imagination. The book in my hands feels suddenly too heavy. She scans the room for me and I am honored. What follows is the moment when our eyes meet after years apart but I haven’t been able to describe that yet.
It was challenging for me to contend with my love all this time. When I was younger love intimidated me and I tried to kill it. When that didn’t work I tried to abandon the part of myself where this love lived. Alcohol sufficed most of the time. Of course, since the entirety of my being was consumed by love this didn’t work either, but it took me much longer to realize that.
So I left, desperately. I ran as far away as I could, hoping that my love would starve. However, love is much like mold, thriving in warm dark places such as my heart, and was self-sufficient by the time I had left. She fretted, sending me letters that I burned in the envelope. I grew up and returned but only after I had wasted much time.
Now that I am older I am at peace with this love, finally, letting it take shelter within me. What fascinates me is the reason for its longevity in such harsh circumstances. She was young when I left and has changed twofold countless times, but even when she was almost completely different from herself I still loved her. I believe in a sort of jewel within her, an emerald perhaps; green is pure and fresh. It is almost religion to me and I praise it when I see it reflecting sunlight through her eyes. I think maybe I have loved that jewel for all this time, but being wiser now I understand that I can’t know anything for sure.
The phone shook in my hand when I called her to ask her to meet me and I felt like a schoolboy again. Any bookstore would have done but this one was perfect, an old one with musty titles, about to go out of business. I turned pages blindly for hours. I worried that too much time had passed, that I had pushed my chance out of my fingers. I kicked myself, cursed my stupidity, almost broken when she walked through the door.
My best attempt to describe the moment when our eyes met was that I died and saw the heaven that my religion had promised me. She smiled brilliantly and I slipped back to life. There is time yet.
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