Revisiting, again

It’s funny how easy it is for you to seem like you don’t even care. Not funny in the natural sense of the word, obviously, but funny how you made it seem like you ever did at all. I can’t tell though, did you?

Reading someone else’s mind isn’t easy, although I thought I was good at it before. Now? I’m convinced I don’t know what anyone is thinking at any moment no matter how obvious they’re being. You’ve really ruined every shred of confidence I ever had in being with other people. Maybe that’s my own fault. Which is that fucked up kind of funny again because we we’re never really together anyways.

You really do make it look easy though, forgetting me. I wish I was as good as it as you are, but that’ll be just another thing that I fail at. I’ll remember you and ache for it until the light in my eyes go dark.

Maybe you were just trying to get rid of me, that’s what I keep circling back to. You had a taste and the sweetness stroked your palate enough to keep you coming back for a little while, then something happened. Was it too sweet or not enough? I often think it was too much, that seems to be the theme of you when it comes to me.

“If I’m too much go find less,” as the phrase goes.

You didn’t even wait for me to say it.

Anything helps

I need you as a distraction, be that from reality or my self-imposed hell. Give me something good to feel about and revel in. Grab my hand and twirl into me. Let me watch your dress spin as it tries to catch up with you. I want to admire something that enjoys being admired.

Be that tiny dancer in the sand and give me a pirate smile. Hold me closer. Don’t let go baby, I need this.

Make it all go away, even though I know it won’t be permanent. You might be able to mask it for a while though. I’ll take anything you’ve got, and at least I’m trying now. The static in the signal is giving me a momentary reprieve. Thank you, I needed this.

Together

Can you imagine it, what together feels like? It’s not a word that exudes a certain feeling but if you asked someone and they gave it a moment of thought I believe you’d get an answer that would satisfy your mind and your heart. So, as you sit there in your pretty dress with your pretty smile and your pretty eyes, can you imagine what together feels like? Would you whisper your answer in my ear and cause a shiver to pour through me? Will you let your dangling strands of milk chocolate brown hair caress my cheek and overwhelm me to where I can’t help but pull you into my arms?

Together, to me, feels like warmth on a cold day. Sharing a blanket and your weight pressed into me as if we’re one entity. It’s also a quiet summer night in a darkened room, save the yellow glow of two lamps on either side of a couch. Our bare legs stretched out and intertwined, mine between yours and yours on top of mine. One of my hands clasping a book while the other kneads at the soles of your feet, my ears gifted with soft pleasured sounds slipping past your lips.

Every time I would look up at you as you made one of those sounds. I don’t know if you we’re doing it on purpose or if its involuntary, but eventually you catch me looking and begin to do it more often. Our eyes catch and you’d bite your lower lip. That would be the end of it. The end of me. The end of the book and the end of the saccharine moment we were sharing, because I’d stare into your green eyes and get jealous of your teeth biting into your lip.

I would split your legs and summit your body. My hands beginning their trek at your hips and dragging all the way up until they dive deep into your hair, pulling it back. My fingers through your hair like forks through sand.

My lips wouldn’t have the same patience. They would dive immediately for yours and indulge in a kiss that started in the middle as if it were paused from the night before. The soft and gentle moans from my hands on your feet would sound like a Disney movie compared to the NC-17 designation I would pull from you. The windows would fog with steam and after our deeds were done we’d be thankful that the house was empty, as we made no consideration for others when letting our lungs loose to play.

And then we’d lay there together, again. Some of our clothes in various stages of wear, while other pieces at random distances around the room. My hungry lips unable to stop feeding itself with quick, repeated pecks of your cheek and shoulder. Your hands traveling my thighs, up and down, before they reach to hook on the back of my head and pull me in for another kiss in an awkward and stretched behind you kind of way.

Together. The two of us.

Wasting another night against each other and redefining the way we think of certain words.

In some other life

Accidents are funny things, most often associated with destruction, anger or sadness.

A collision.

A betrayal.

An ending.

Conversely, there are happy accidents as well. Positive outcomes that cause you to stumble into something and makes your smile beam like an inextinguishable ray of light.

It’s serendipitous, like two people reaching for the same glove in a department store or sitting next to each other randomly in a movie theater. A conversation happens over the glove, or a catch of the eye on the way out of the theater. Fireworks from there.

Or better yet, they happen to be in the same room at the same time with all other distractions held at bay just long enough to give each other a chance. Who knows what might come from that. Who knows what still may come. Accidents happen, and sometimes they work out better than you would have ever imagined.

Dream A Little A Dream Of Me

“Hey, come’re,” he said as he took her hand.

“Why, what? What are you doing?” She pulled back slightly, confused.

“Just go with, baby,” he reached again and held out his upturned palm, this time waiting for her to offer her hand back.

She sighed a smile and dropped her hand in his as if it were a rock into the mud. He was in a mood and she could tell by the smile on his face. It was a mischievous smile, but the mischief was harmless. He wanted to play with her, but she found he always picked the oddest times.

He started humming and pulled her toward him. His right hand clasping her left with his left hand settled on her hip. She recognized the tune vibrating from his lips but she couldn’t quite place it. It was familiar. It was old. It was the perfect amount of peculiarity she’s become used to with him.

“Stars shining bright above you/Night breezes seem to whisper “I love you”/Birds singing in the sycamore trees/…“

“Dream a little dream of me,” she finished the words for him in her sing-song-y voice.

She pulled her left hand from his and, along with her right, extended them behind his head and dangled them loosely on his shoulders. Both of his hands were now clasping her waist and they swayed together slowly in a softly broken silence with his humming and her angelic voice.

The room was dark and it was late, neither of them were really sure what the exact time was but the streetlights were humming and the neighbor’s living room’s were all dark. The two of them had gotten lost in each other for most of the evening and just decided to move the festivities to the bedroom when he had a moment of inspiration and took her hand. They now swayed in the moonlight that shone in through the window and reflected off of the dining room table, which gave the room a spotlight glow. Their bodies moved just outside the glow but with enough reflection where he could see her lips moving as she continued to sing.

“Say nightie-night and kiss me,” her voice punctuated the last two words and she bit her lip while looking to him. He followed suit with a press of his lips to hers. It was a simple kiss that held them together with the softest touch, but evolved quickly into his tongue penetrating her mouth and lapping at hers while his hands gripped her tight and her arms bent around his neck.

When the kiss finally broke, she continued, “just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me, while I’m all alone and blue as can be, dream-a little dream-of me.”

Her voice stopped for a moment at each mention of the word dream. She looked at him and into his eyes and the light bounced around in them as he smiled. She squeezed herself around his neck and brought her lips back to his and he indulged in another kiss before pulling back and stared back into hers and the smiling beaming back at him.

He sang back to her, “sweet dreams till sunbeams find you. Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you. But in your dreams, whatever they be, won’t you dream a little dream of we.”

She bit her lip and pressed herself into him as hard as humanly possible at his changing of the last verse. She shook her head and dipped her eyes from his, “come on. Let’s go or we’ll wake the sun.”

He twirled her once and she led him to the bedroom, their fingers clasped in a hook the entire way down the hall. The door closed to soft squeals and low growls that filled their sheets until they fell into their own dreams, lingering in them until dawn.

Why not another one, hm?

I sent you a song the other day. I said I thought you’d like the guy’s voice. You said you’d add it to the list and sent one back.

I listened to it and liked it. I usually do like your suggestions, but I don’t know if I like them because I like them or do I like them because you suggested them. Have you gotten so deep inside that you’re affecting me that much, that I can’t decide whether I’m me or I’m me because of how it relates to you?

The latter would make sense. I’m sure everyone would believe it too.

You never answered whether you liked my suggestion or not. Figures. I’ve always liked you more than you’ve liked me, and I guess that’s the eternity that I’m left to wade through.

I love a girl who doesn’t love me back.

It’s not her fault though.

I’m just tired and I wish I could stop, but love’s hunger is everlasting.

Maybe

Dixon Street.  She lived on Dixon Street.

Little white house with a chain link fence to keep the dog in.  Neighbors so close you could hear their television at night.  Forced hello’s in the morning and goodnight’s while you walk the dog.  Every perfect little life that most people hope they get.

She lived in that house because it was her parents house.  They passed it down to her when they bought a luxury RV and decided to travel the country on their retirement.  She lived there but it wasn’t her dream, just a stepping stone.

I saw her one day as she was mowing the front lawn.  She was wearing a pair of skimpy running shorts and a running bra.  Her hair was bundled up on top of her head in a perfectly messy bun that looked as if it was designed that way.  She looked amazing doing a mundane task.  I could have watched her mow that lawn for hours, but sitting at a stop sign for that long becomes suspicious.

I wish I could have asked her out right then and there.  I considered it.  Even later that evening I thought about walking up to her door and knocking on it and telling her how beautiful she is and asking if she would like to get something to eat.  But it all just sounded so fantastic and ridiculous that it would never amount to anything.

So I just let it be.  An observation as I drive by.  A treat.  An enjoyment.  Something that could possibly be but isn’t, however never fully denied to never be.  She’ll live as something special.  She’ll live on as something pure and never was but always could have possibly been.

And then he kissed me

We talked about random things.  We talked about silly things and got to know each other.  He was nice and kind and inquisitive but not creepy.  He was equally interested in knowing things about me than he was talking about himself.  He wasn’t secretive or evasive.  It was a great first conversation and I left it smiling.

Then we talked about what we were doing.  What we like to do and where we’ve been.  We talked about the past and things we’d love to do in the future.  Some of the things he’s done that I’d love to do.  We joked about doing the same thing but at different times in the same place.  We reminisced and fantasized along the same plane of existence.

After that we talked about our actions.  Things we do and ways we act.  Various likes and dislikes and how we can’t understand how other people don’t share our likes or dislikes.  We came up with cutesy nicknames for each other based on these and teased each other based on others.  The words adorable and cute were bandied about in my direction and I told him to stop making me smile so much because my cheeks are starting to hurt.

Eventually the conversations led to something slightly more risque.  It was hot and I was hot and he seemed hot.  I was more empirically hot in the sense that I was sweating from the heat, while I found him more and more appealing with every conversation we had.  I looked forward to them.  When he would text me and say hello I would light up.  I had to contain myself slightly because I didn’t want to seem too eager and come off as desperate.
He asked what I was doing and I told him, purposefully, that I was folding laundry in slightly more than no clothing.  His attention was always readily available but his tone changed.  His words went from fun and flirty to flirty and suggestive.  I suggested just as much and we suggested each other doing very suggestive things.
We slipped back, comfortably, into our usual conversation of silly and fun to goodnight and in bed.  A smile permanently plastered on my face as I drifted off to sleep.  

Soon after we decided to get together to test the chemistry and physics, to see if the pull was just as strong and the reactions at the same intensity.  We met and we shared a drink.  We smiled and laughed.  The laughs were genuine and held in reserve for fear of looking too comfortable.  I don’t know why.
The drinks turned into more drinks which turned into a bit of food.  I can eat in front of him?  Wow.
Hours might have gone by, or just a single one I’m not really sure.  It was a great time, just as good as our texting and then better on top of it.  Better because I could see his blue eyes behind his glasses.  I could watch his smile when I did something dumb that he said was adorable.  There was even that moment I got to feel his hand along mine while his fingers dragged over my palm to see if he could make me shiver.  It was amazing and I didn’t want it to end, but it had to.

We got to my car, because he walked me to my car.  We smiled our goodbyes and hugged our regrets behind them.  We stood under the streetlight which, itself, was under the stars.  The busy, warm night was all around us and even though it couldn’t have gone any better I wish it wouldn’t have stopped and was a little sad that it was ending.  Would this be the best night we had together and it only just began?  I’m always so negative.

And then he kissed me.

Do you see me?

“This is basically like a menu for people.”

She wasn’t wrong.  Dating had become a strange phenomenon.  There wasn’t any spark or meet cute involved anymore.  Now it was similar to the way a couple picks a sperm donor or, as Melody said, the way a person picks their food off of a menu.

“Yeah, but Mel, attraction plays a role things anyway right?  I mean, come on, when you’re seeing someone from across the room, as all the songs say, you’re only noticing them because of their looks right?  So, here you are.  Seeing someone from across the city.”

“Not the same,” she was still a romantic.

“Of course it is,” I wasn’t.

She shook her head in response, “no it isn’t.  Not even close.  You can’t get that feeling from a picture of a person you’ve never known before.  Someone you’ve never seen before.  It’s not the same.”

“Fine, tell me why then.”

She turned towards me with her hands in front of her.  They were pointing at me like arrows and she was attacking my assumption that online dating and meeting someone in the real world for the first time are the same.  She was riding her horse and she was going to die on it in battle.

“So many reasons!”

“Such as?”

“Pictures lie, for starters.  Its a snapshot of a person.  They might be pretty but what if they have a terrible voice.  What if they walk funny.  What if they smell bad?”

I laughed, “so you’re reason why online dating isn’t as good is even more superficial than online dating?  Wow Mel.  Wow.”

“No!”  She laughed and pushed me, “it’s the reality.  The reality of all of your senses telling you that someone is the one.  Or, potentially.  You can watch the way they interact with other people.  You can see the way their smile slowly creeps across their face.  The sound of their laugh, a genuine laugh, when someone says something funny.”

She stopped for a second and dropped her eyes from my face and looked at her shoes.

“The way your body trembles the first time they brush up against you in the slightest way and you catch the scent of them whether its cologne or the soap they use or just their natural smell.”

She paused again and fidgeted.

“You remember those things.  They mean something.  They develop in your head and fester until you become obsessed with them.  You make up fake conversations that you have with them about the first time you noticed them and you pretend they noticed you for the first time then too.  It’s a story you create in your head because the reality is they don’t know you exist and you’re too afraid they won’t care when they find out you do.”

Melody wiped her eyes and sniffled then picked her head up and smiled at me.

“Why would you want to deprive yourself of that by meeting someone online, huh?  Isn’t it grand?  Doesn’t it sound wonderful?”

She tried to laugh it off and turn to the computer.  She clicked through a few profiles.  She found someone who looked nice.  He wasn’t too attractive but he wasn’t someone who spent most of their life in dark hallways either.

“He’ll do I guess.”

“I guess?”  I looked at her with my forehead making all kinds of squiggly lines.

“Yeah I don’t know.  He seems nice.”

“Mel, you don’t want someone who seems nice.  You want someone who seems amazing.  You want-,” I stopped this time.  She picked her head up and looked me in the eyes with tears floating on the brink of escape and I stopped talking just to stare at her.

You don’t always remember the moment you really noticed someone.  You always knew them and who they were and you looked at them hundreds, if not thousands of time, but you never can remember the moment when you first noticed something specific about them.  Like the way they smile or the motion they wave their hand in when they pull their hair behind their ear.

Right then I noticed the way she looked at me with her teary, reddened eyes and I looked back at her and my mind spoke up out of turn and asked if I had ever noticed how beautiful she was when she cried.

I shook my head.  I couldn’t answer.  I couldn’t say out loud that I hadn’t and talk to myself like a psycho, but I did notice.  I saw her looking at me and staring into my eyes and she was so beautiful that I wanted to kiss her.

I didn’t though.  I couldn’t.  I didn’t even know what that was.  Why was I looking at her like that after all of these years of knowing her?  It didn’t make sense.

I shook my head and mumbled something.  She turned away and we decided that online dating would have to wait.  We went out for ice cream instead and sat on a bench until the sun fell and the moon splashed stars across the sky.  We talked and laughed and sat in silence.  It was one of the best days of that summer and I’ll never forget it.  It was the day that I realized I liked her.  It was the day when I truly understood what she meant about online dating.  It was the day I saw how beautiful she was when she cried and when I vowed to never see her cry again.