Forty One 03.25.10

Today I will break with my usual custom. Today, I write you two letters. The first is an unnecessary purge of emotion. You'll have to excuse it, for once again, I can't really keep much of anything from you in the end.

My heart wants to believe everything is right and running its course. It wants to be easy and sure the way I know it to be. It wants for calm moments of certainty and clarity because they allow me to view you as you are: breathtaking, resplendent, wondrous. But my brain, my brain is an organ of an entirely different nature. It is broken with doubt and shards of glass wedge themselves in deep, slicing through its meninges with an almost surgical precision. This is where the confusion sets in. I don't even want to pretend that I'm asking you to foster some inappropriate bond with me. I know better than to do that. I know better than to ask for more validation after what you gave me Sunday night.

I heard you, "It will take more time." I heard you repeat it like a mantra and I understood. But I also remember the way you said you would contact me, closer to this weekend. I keep thinking now, the memories of that night might be all I have to hold onto in the end. I keep trying to train myself not to revert back to old habits letting doubt stab deep and with it spreading panic like a wildfire across my heart. I keep trying to say to my brain: "Be still, you don't have to have all the answers now, be patient."

I keep hearing the tone of your voice in my head the way you spoke to me on Sunday night. I keep remembering the words you spoke with such conviction. I can see it now, the way you looked me straight in the eye unwavering, and told me your secret heartfelt truths you had kept hidden from me for so long. And I know deep down, although you are a fantastic actress, you have always been a shit liar. I know you wouldn't dare say those things to me unless you felt them and meant them. But I still keep falling over on my ass. I'm knocked completely off balance by the shock when I recollect how you persisted in bringing these little acts of intimacy we once engaged in so regularly to the surface: asking me to push your glasses up onto the bridge of your nose for you, caterpillar eater, cheek vampire, eating my nose, Anchor Man quotes, playing with my hair, and holding me so tightly to you in my arms. Don't mistake, I am not saying I have a single solitary regret, I couldn't ever. That night is like a beacon for me in a raging sea. So please don't take it back, I don't want these moments stolen from my grasp.

The fact you were invoking what I thought before that was a love between us that had grown stale and devoid of the promise of ever being rekindled was like a miracle before my doubting Thomas eyes. I keep recalling the way you told me, you wanted me to chase you. And then I keep thinking, what the fuck am I doing? I keep thinking every time I flirt with you and it goes unrequited I must have misheard you on Sunday. I keep trying to go back and play that night back in my mind over and over, looking for the clues where you were really saying "fuck off." Instead of "I want you to chase me." I keep thinking I must be the proverbial Fool in the tarot card if I was ever thinking that you would spare me a millisecond of your time after that night. You have grander projects that require your focus than to cater to me and my insecurity over my love for you. You have hammerhead sharks to fillet, and people that don't complicate your existence with their needy emotional baggage.

I'm just trying to find the right way to communicate with you. I've tried a few tricks up my sleeves, you liked the carrier pigeons. But you didn't care much for the smoke signals. When I send you raptors you note their plumage with your sparkling eyes. But my telegrams go unanswered, just the "stop" at the end of the message ringing back to me while this feeling squeezes around my throat. It's a riddle I am still trying to solve, what's too much, what's too little? How do I make you smile and welcome me back into your life again? I'm not rushing it, but I'm just looking for the next stepping stone to jump on to cross these troubled waters.

You assure me you'll put me in my place if I go too far, I have yet to see you pull back and unleash the sting of your backhand across my cheek. I have yet to see you recoil and leave me dangling on the end of a disconnected phone line. But there are moments where I swear I am like the Fox in Aesop's fables jumping for grapes and snapping my jaws at dead air. Silence. You give me pockets of silence and I feel them like turbulence. Other times, you send me multitudinous words, a cacophony of sound from your brain via text message. I wonder if this is just some silly game in the end. But the things you contact me for, they seem real. They seem like you are giving me the window into your life I wanted so badly before. And I am grateful like a follower who has found their messiah at least, I am grateful you let me in now at all. You come to me for mirth and support. You send me random snapshots of your day, as if to say "I want you here," and "over there."


But when I try to get closer, or move the picture into focus, you retreat. Am I being too coy? Is that it? Is my chase too subtle? Do you want more grand proclamations? Because I have no issue mustering earthquakes and volcanoes for you. They erupt, spouting my love for you at least a dozen times a day. I could send you thunderstorm bearing violet forking tongues that would scream from the heavens how much I adore you. I could upend any fool that stood in your way with the whipping winds of my hurricane love for you. But it's this thing...It's the acute awareness I have that you are a sexy independent capable woman. I would never thrust myself on you unless you gave me a green light to do it winking at me from your dimpled smile.

I am just going to have to trust in the organ that works for me best, the one that sought you out in the first place. The one that still keeps me tied to you despite the effects of the poor chemistry of my brain. I'm going to have to just trust, that what is in my heart is right. I'll send you my warmth and my passion, and I'll let your words grace my ears in whatever form they take. I'm going to just have to send you my sweetmeats piece by piece with my carrier pigeons and my raptors. I'll leave the smoke signals and the telegrams to be damned. I just hope soon you'll feel more comfortable to tie a silver ribbon of parchment to the feet of those dear birds of mine and send some messages that are clearer back. Not from your brain dear love, but your heart.