We speak these words and write these sentences and play this game like we think it might turn out any differently than how we already know it will.
You ask me, “What’s wrong?” but how can I tell you it hurts to think you wouldn’t take me to a fancy restaurant and spend money on me just because you wanted to, even if you don’t have it, but because you think I was worth it—when I know you have done so for her, and that was when you were much more strapped for money than you are now.
I’m not sure I will ever believe I was your choice, your first choice, your Plan A. I really do believe I was always Plan B, and that you would have chosen her over me, had you been given the chance and not had the opportunity to choose taken away from you.
A midnight maiden
enraptured the north wind
with her moonlit locks
and darksome eyes
such starlit promises
smelt in her skin
Sitting in her high hall
face all aglow
whispering secrets to the night
the wind wound
around this moon elf
a winsome creature to hold
But no fingers does the wind possess
only a breath’s caress
to smooth the worry
from her brow.
It’s official, now. Even-steven.
Except… I’ve been guarding against paranoia, against suspicion for so long—been keeping knowledge and things I shouldn’t know in my head, that I can’t shake them. I can’t just get rid of all those things so easily, like the flip of a switch. I’m trying.. but as with everything, it’s an uphill battle sometimes.
To use that phrase? To use that term, that so-called formality?
How sudden my surprise to hear you say you have called me your girlfriend. Or the times in recent days when I’ve had to correct you when you’ve called yourself my boyfriend. Perhaps, if you’ve become so comfortable in using those terms, that it might be time to reconsider the definitions of them. Committing to someone is not about obligations, and you will still do things because you want to. But it’s saying to the world that you only want to do those thing for one other person in particular. It’s a formality, yes, especially for us at this point. And honestly, I still think it is a bit trivial of a term to use for everything we’ve been through, seen and unseen, these past two years. For the way we have been, the nature of what we are and have been these past two years.
You know where I stand, and I think I finally know and am confident where you stand. It’s just up to you when and how you want to tell everyone else.
I will slowly wake you, inch by inch, with my hands and lips on your skin, spreading fire over the monoliths your shoulder-blades make on your back. I will coax murmurs and sighs from your lips through heated and blood-stirring spirals, traced along invisible lines and shadows that dance over your muscles. With vodka tingling my veins, I will fill yours with smoke with whispered phrases and inaudible messages sent straight to your cerebral cortex, straight to your medulla oblongata, to make your blood race and your heart pound.
And we will create a heaven in your bed in which I have—and you’ve allowed—slipped into without pretense, without conditions. Without convenience and without obligations or limitations. With only you in mind. Only you, because there only should have ever been you. We will slip into the precipice of the edge of things we have been standing on for so long.
I was going to write something about how talking with you makes everything better, even when I’m a mess and over-worrisome… and this was the first thing on my dashboard. I think that about covers it, because that’s what you did yesterday—or, at the very least, something pretty close to it.
Also, to you whom I ran into running out and in the door, I’m sorry for appearing rude. I was unraveled and not composed, and I don’t like being seen like that. It truly was nothing personal, just I felt bad for you having to leave before you and he were expecting, and I felt bad for arriving as you were leaving and looking the way that I did. I meant no insult, and I kind of feel like offering you a drink to make up for it.
Look. I know you’ve just come from situations that were underhanded, deceptive, one-sided, selfish in all sorts of ways, and full of holding things over your head, and unwanted obligations and limitations, and a whole hell of a lot of craziness all around. I know you’re trying to avoid allowing anything like that happen to you again, and I know that’s why you refuse to commit to anything further from you than the tip of your nose. But it really hurt to hear you think that I am, and have somehow been hiding, I suppose—or will become—like that. In the almost two years we’ve been in this whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-it, have I given any indication that I’m going to hold you to expectations that fall into any of the areas you’re afraid of? Have you any reason to think I’m going to randomly start holding things over your head?
No, we’re not dating. But it still really, really hurts to hear you say things like that when you know how I feel about you. When you know that I know thinks are emotionally lopsided, but still do everything I do for you because I want to—and no, that’s not trying to get you to do things for me because I’m saying I’ve done things for you. It’s a statement of how things are. Because when you know how I feel about you, and you know me better than almost anyone else in almost every aspect of who I am, and you sit there and say things like Everyone says it’s okay in the beginning, and they’re okay with it in the beginning, but then little things build and build until they just fall apart and start expecting things and wanting shit because they’ve done things for you—not everyone. Have I? No. I do thing, and will keep on doing things for you because I want to. I like to. Yes, it’s nice to have things done for me, and I’m a bit sad sometimes when I ask you to do something for me and you don’t, but I’m not going to hold it over your head. I’m not going to do things so you are obligated to do things for me. When have I ever been or ever shown the remotest hint that I would ever be like that?
I know you’ve encountered and “seen” and dated far too many women to shake that fear easily. But please stop thinking I’m like that. Stop accusing me, even subconsciously, or being—or even that I might become—like that. I’m more understanding and not petty or crazy or selfish enough to ever be like that.
More often than not, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m giving to the detriment of myself. I don’t usually point things like that out because it looks like I’m tooting my own horn, or trying to “guilt trip” you into something. But I’m not. I’m only stating facts. Facts that have been pointed out to me by other people, because guess what, giving this much all the time is in my fucking nature.
So suck it up and deal with it.
Nothing more than that, not, “I love you, will you be mine forever,” not, “I love you, I want to live with you,” but just simple, “I love you.” In such a nonchalant manner, I almost missed hearing it in the dream. I remember asking you to repeat it, and you did, in a quiet, almost sheepish sort of manner.
Neither of us made a big deal about it, though I think I kissed you after you said it the second time, but then the dream continued on, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Another dream, that so much was it natural, I had to recollect myself when I woke with you this morning and remind myself it didn’t actually happen. I’m getting a bit sick of these dreams that are too real.
I want so much to build a life with you. I want to live together, to combine out plates and silverware and decorations. I want to have the second bedroom be a workout room for us to use together and separately. I want my own studio, finally, to spread out all my art and craft supplies—I want an old armoire with shelves to keep all my yarn in. I want a yard of some sort to grow herbs and maybe some vegetables and to let a dog we picked out and my two cats roam in. I want a market nearby to pick up small quantities of fresh items to cook for you nearly every night again. I want to sit down and go over dull things like finances and bills with you, somehow making them magical and thrilling because I’m sharing them with you. You and I are both so close to being able to spread our proverbial wings in doing the things we want to do, so close to being okay with money situations, but we’re both still spread a tad too thin by ourselves. It wouldn’t be more for convenience’s sake, though it would ease things tremendously for both of us. I can tell you’re a step away from wanting the things I want—else, you wouldn’t be having me over every night, every night, and still be sad when I leave for one evening/night. I feel that, too. It’s so obvious and logical to me… but at the same time, I understand your aversion and avoidance of this and other things like it. So I will quell my urge to talk to you about finding a place together and wait for you to do it in your own time.