If we are the "wise" monkeys, why do we keep making such dumb decisions?
I left him cool his heels for a week. Didn't tell him about Aunt Flo, just left him wonder why I wasn't picking up on any of those subtly placed "So...!" trailers he dropped in conversation. I don't have to really know where anything is going or for how long; I've yet to see any amount of hope or determination pay off in a relationship. When push came to shove and the truth got dragged out from behind the curtain of sweet gestures - they were all just friends with benefits. We've only got but just one day. I don't even want to know about tomorrow.
So on this day, after 7 nights of waking up in that big apartment alone and finding the expanse of a king sized bed to be too much for one person, he lights up my phone like a Christmas tree. Voicemail, SMS, begging, "I need your company". Of course you do. It sucks to be alone, to waste this flesh on empty sheets, to know that no one listens and wonders if you twitch from a nightmare or wake up in the middle of the night thirsty. I know. I take some persuading. I have to wash my hair, after all. But... ok. I'm far too nice to you, but OK.
I can make the requisite turn through my home in under an hour and a half. Make a 250 calorie smoothie for dinner, take a shower, blowout hair, change the clothes, pack the bag, grab the mail.
Hey! puffy envelope!!! It could be the proof for my novel come from the publisher! How exciting! I flip the package over and...shit. It is the return of a borrowed novel from the former hostage of my affections. I had completely forgotten about that whole deal as for over a month he'd been only an electronic presence. SMS messages telling me I meant nothing. Indicators on a singles site telling me that he never stopped looking over his shoulder for something better. Emails holding to the politest line of information exchange. This envelope is, at last, the caboose. But it's still funny to see his scratches on the envelope. I'm grateful that there is no awkward attempt at personal communication inside, but I do find a discarded bookmark in the pages. It's a ticket stub to a broadway show dated Jan 21. So that's what you were up to when not returning my calls. For a second a vision of a gesture, the way he looked standing in my vestibule, a scent, wafts through my mind. I let it pass through like a breeze. Not catching it to squeeze forth any meaning, I just let it go, let it pass into the thick forest of memory. Let it mean nothing.
On the bus I send an sms indicating my arrival time. The trail of messages, collected here over weeks, is like a sieve run through our relationship and coming up with the grosser chunks of truth. Here is encouragement, here is longing, here is capitulation. Here I go again - making the same situation that somewhat resembles a potential mess despite what experience has taught me. Smart. I'm on this bus because my apartment is big and lonely, too. I'm on this bus because a destructive spring full of fairy tales about love still bubbles and seeps under my rocky exterior. I'm on this bus because I want something and haven't quite put my finger on just the way to not need it anymore. I'm on this bus because something in my nature always says "full steam ahead" forgetting it's the engine, not the caboose, that kills you when it strikes. I'm on this bus because, today, it just doesn't feel like the most loving thing to stay alone.
Showing posts with label Italian chicago love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian chicago love. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
I am welcome
At 11 pm the row of lights atop of the Hancock tower blink off. Up here I can look passing clouds in the eye. Up here I look down over buildings as windows shut their eyes and go dark for the night. It's that time again. Time again I'm listening to the sound of him sleeping next to me, sounding like the soft purr of a giant cat. It's time again I look out over the skyline, over the night city, and wonder.
I never know how to figure these out. I can lie here suspecting that this man just won't understand certain parts of me. But roll the tape back even one month to a man I thought did understand. Re-hear his talk; the sweet and understanding language. Hold his subsequent behavior up to the light and observe what hideous revelation of character eventually brought into view. His soul rotted in self-pity, his mind full of drink: it's sad to watch someone fall so perilously far short of the person they could be. Sad for him. I step over the body and move on with amazing alacrity.
Perhaps expecting someone to "care", to "understand", is simply too much and too gooey a goal to really understand in physicality should it arrive at the door. What does this understanding look like? What does it sound like? What does it ACT like? Perhaps it's a gift one only gives yet truly releases the strings. Maybe the math on feeling "known" will never balance out. It's fruitless effort on an impossible equation. I look around my full life and don't know what it is I want or somehow think I need. There's nothing, really, nothing I need. But the question of how can I just not hurt one more person with selfish behavior for one more day persists. I'd like to say that I would like someone to be good to. But is that, too, selfish? What spark of my own happiness am I expecting to come flying out of some man? Why am I here? The horns atop the tower blink red, warning planes and keeping a pace for all insomniacs of the city. What do I do here, god? How am I to be authentic, here, today?
Roll over and watch him sleep, face relaxed in an unconscious lack of expression. It's the same face I see as he answers the door or cleans up after me when I spill precious chocolate milk in the kitchen. He wears only his own face and there's no denying it's simply beautiful. He shuffles slightly, perhaps sensing my regard from the distance of his dream. Settling back in, his purring returns. I hate to admit it. It will feed right into that big Italian ego, but he really is the best lover. I doubt the oracle telling me to 'go ahead with this' every day, but when has certainty ever been a guarantee? Never.
I retrieved the cracked offerings of my affection from him who tossed them back so carelessly. And I'm fine. It was mine to keep all the time & I'm certainly not less anything in the attempt. Maybe I try too hard to give away that which I should be keeping.
As we part in the morning, wishing each other good day with a peck, it hits me just what I'm seeking. I want him to tell me outright, in that very moment, that he wants me to see me back as soon as possible, wants to call me, looks forward to seeing me again. I'm just looking for a welcome. Just another person hoping their heart doesn't die homeless. So that's what it is.
Unusually warm air kisses my face as I step out into a sun drenched morning. Saunter down the street like a soft jazz song plucked on a Les Paul. Despite all my thinking, who couldn't smile, now?
I never know how to figure these out. I can lie here suspecting that this man just won't understand certain parts of me. But roll the tape back even one month to a man I thought did understand. Re-hear his talk; the sweet and understanding language. Hold his subsequent behavior up to the light and observe what hideous revelation of character eventually brought into view. His soul rotted in self-pity, his mind full of drink: it's sad to watch someone fall so perilously far short of the person they could be. Sad for him. I step over the body and move on with amazing alacrity.
Perhaps expecting someone to "care", to "understand", is simply too much and too gooey a goal to really understand in physicality should it arrive at the door. What does this understanding look like? What does it sound like? What does it ACT like? Perhaps it's a gift one only gives yet truly releases the strings. Maybe the math on feeling "known" will never balance out. It's fruitless effort on an impossible equation. I look around my full life and don't know what it is I want or somehow think I need. There's nothing, really, nothing I need. But the question of how can I just not hurt one more person with selfish behavior for one more day persists. I'd like to say that I would like someone to be good to. But is that, too, selfish? What spark of my own happiness am I expecting to come flying out of some man? Why am I here? The horns atop the tower blink red, warning planes and keeping a pace for all insomniacs of the city. What do I do here, god? How am I to be authentic, here, today?
Roll over and watch him sleep, face relaxed in an unconscious lack of expression. It's the same face I see as he answers the door or cleans up after me when I spill precious chocolate milk in the kitchen. He wears only his own face and there's no denying it's simply beautiful. He shuffles slightly, perhaps sensing my regard from the distance of his dream. Settling back in, his purring returns. I hate to admit it. It will feed right into that big Italian ego, but he really is the best lover. I doubt the oracle telling me to 'go ahead with this' every day, but when has certainty ever been a guarantee? Never.
I retrieved the cracked offerings of my affection from him who tossed them back so carelessly. And I'm fine. It was mine to keep all the time & I'm certainly not less anything in the attempt. Maybe I try too hard to give away that which I should be keeping.
As we part in the morning, wishing each other good day with a peck, it hits me just what I'm seeking. I want him to tell me outright, in that very moment, that he wants me to see me back as soon as possible, wants to call me, looks forward to seeing me again. I'm just looking for a welcome. Just another person hoping their heart doesn't die homeless. So that's what it is.
Unusually warm air kisses my face as I step out into a sun drenched morning. Saunter down the street like a soft jazz song plucked on a Les Paul. Despite all my thinking, who couldn't smile, now?
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