Triggers

It’s been almost ten years since we first met. In ten years I’ve forgotten so much of the everyday things I’ve done. When I move house and find little momentos of these things I’m amazed by how much can lay dormant in my brain awaiting a little trigger.

I still remember that night we met, and so many little things from that night act as triggers. Cranberry Juice. A red beret. Town Hall steps. The buzz of the air in springtime at dusk.

The way you danced, the cheeky smile and the natural groove. I could see you knew how to find the rhythm in the music and match it to your body’s way.

When I see a girl dancing for attention, scripted by the latest filmclip and seeming all out is sync, I think of you. I think of how natural and vital you were and I see my girlfriend at the time trying to dance away her sadness. I tried the best I could to hide the effect you’d had on me, but she knew. She could see the change in my face.

From that night everything about you echoes through my day. The passion for social change and the care of others. The way you can step in with both feet. Your concern with your weight and my insensitive comments. I couldn’t understand your worry because you are perfect to me.

We had times together that will always stay with me, even if I get old timers and can’t remember my name, I’ll remember them.

The night you came back to kiss me.

I couldn’t because I knew how much he loved you too.

I couldn’t because I didn’t think I could be what you deserved.

I should’ve, but I wasn’t brave enough to jump with both feet.

Now you live in a place I’d love to be. On the other side of the world. Where my sister found and lost her true love.

I remember thinking that when all the busy years had flown, we’d find eachother again. I thought that in time the poles would flip. We’ll fit together in cuddles and my mind will no longer be dormant.

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You and me.

You and me. We’re like a hot, bright firework.

It doesn’t matter that the hot part is over, and was over more than 10 years ago now. The hot part where we just shot into the sky and fucking exploded and fell in love way too quick and both got really scared about how intense it was. How we were saying it to each other wide-eyed and incredulous, writing it to each other on paper making it real. We would get in your bed and stay up literally all night making out. We couldn’t stop. We’d fall asleep for a couple hours with our faces pressed together and our hearts and eyelids fluttering and our tattoos smushing together into new designs and our breathing in rhythm all too-perfect-like. I’ve kissed a lot of boys and I still remember your kisses. If they hadn’t been so vivid and volcanic and all over me and impossible the next part might not have happened.

That’s the part where the firework is still happening but it’s losing its heat. It’s still sparkling and shimmering and still there…but the real explosion is over. All the little stars are moving away from each other but the idea of what was there still exists, filling out the shape. That’s the part that happened after you smashed my heart. You got more scared than me. You moved thousands of miles away. But then you came back. And you kept coming back into my life for years. We kept going through the motions as much as other relationships and life would allow. Sometimes we’d see each other every day. Our bands played shows together. For a while we were even neighbors. I never stopped wanting to kiss your face. Every single second we spent together getting coffee, watching movies, lounging around outside, talking about stupid shit like robots and our bands and our lives and relationships and how we wanted everything and nothing and were never satisfied…I could barely look at your neutron star eyes that I kept falling into for years. We both knew it and didn’t know it. You apologized for everything from forever ago. Said you were wrong, scared. Our hearts were both bloody on our sleeves but we didn’t want to ruin each other’s lives…though we came so close so many times…every time you threw pebbles at my window or put your head in my lap when we were sitting on a bench or showed up drenched in a rain storm at my door. Every time we hugged so tight and so long when we parted, your face buried in my long hair, your eyelashes flicking my cheek. I think you held me like that to keep our lips as far apart as they could reasonably be in an embrace. My heart would pound so hard I thought it might knock you over. We shimmered and sparkled around and outside ourselves.

I got married. And that’s the part where we turned to ash. You told me once you thought we’d have ended up together for good if I’d never met my husband and I still agree. We’re grown up now. The universe still keeps cleverly throwing our daily orbits together, over and over again. But it’s cool now. I run into you often. I don’t have a heart attack anymore. I’m just happy I still get to see your face while the ash whirls and falls around us and quietly settles on our cheeks and eyelashes, in our hair, on our hands, on the ground.

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Heart Around Your Picture

I am an adult. The time when you are awkwardly squirming to see if you can get your knee to brush against someone has long passed. A good 15 years passed. That’s why it was so odd that I found someone recently trying to do that to me. And they were even older than I was – farther from their teenhood. Farther from years where it may have been an acceptable means of displaying sexual tension. At first I was kind of grossed out by this awkward display of teen-like affection.

But as I was walking home alone, I had to appreciate it for the memories it brought up. When you are a teenager, these moments are thrilling. Even if you aren’t into the person, there is a least a story to tell your friends. “omigod they were totally trying to touch me when they passed me in the bleachers!”

You were one of the best examples of this awkward inches-from-each-other-really-wanting-to-touch-each-other thing.

I have a heart around your picture in my 8th grade yearbook. You were the grade below me, but you probably stayed back, so I bet you were older. You were super skinny and really really tall. I was short so it probably was amplified by my shortness, but you seemed like a total beanpole. You would pass in the hallway and my friend and I would whisper to each other “so cute!”

You had a blonde bowl haircut. That described everyone in my town though, so it didn’t make you stand out. I just still picture you like that now. An adult with a 7th grader in the 90’s haircut.

Somehow I took you to my semi formal. I actually don’t know how I arranged that.

I was thrilled to be dancing with you. Holding you close. Hoping my hair was in place. Hoping my bobby pins weren’t poking your chest. Hoping I smelled good to you. Hoping my dress was short enough, but not too short.

After the dance we “watched a movie” at my best friend’s house. That basically means you put a movie on and spend the next hour and forty five minutes trying to discern what every millisecond of movement means. Trying to inch closer with an exhale? Trying to move away with a stretch?

I don’t think we took it anywhere from there but even that one evening of crazy tension and eventual hand-holding-under-the-blanket was exhilarating.

Even though you are kind of gross and old fashioned now, I’m glad that you were a young crush. Back when innocence made a simple brush of flesh more thrilling than anything you can imagine now. Back when it wasn’t some odd creepy thing an older man does when your skirt is too short for them to contain themselves.

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Lost Forever.

I lost the only love note you ever gave me. It was the best love note I ever got. Most emotional. Most intense. Most real. Most true. I put it in the blue cup on my windowsill. At some point, I must have gotten worried it would fade in the sun, so I moved it to my box of notes. Under the bed. That must be what happened because the only other terrifying possibility is that my mom found it. Read it. And threw it away?

I had a confidence in our love that I have never been able to replicate. I was so sure that it was forever that I wasn’t jealous when you told me about girls you had crushes on. I wasn’t jealous when you went away to college and were surrounded by other women. Older women. More experienced women. I wasn’t jealous when you dated other women. Women you really liked a whole lot and had a lot of feelings for. It didn’t matter to me, because I knew we would ultimately be together. We had to be.

I almost feel like I wasn’t even jealous when you married her. I still didn’t think it was real.

Now I’m not sure if it was the best love note ever because I can’t reread it repeatedly. We didn’t have electronic archives of every emotion back then. We only had rereading the note until the corners were bent and the creases started permanently fading the ink. Maybe it was a horrible love note and you weren’t even that into me. It’s lost forever though now, so I’ll just never know. I guess getting jealous wouldn’t have helped, but perhaps it was foolish of me to not see. I sometimes feel more mournful about the lost note than the lost love. However brief, that emotion was real and spoken. Not lost forever.

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Letting Go

I can’t tell you what I want right now. It’s a matter of self-preservation. Instead I will write you this letter, put it in an envelope, and mail it to you once I’ve already left.

Dear G,

You were one of the first people I met when I moved to the city, and although our relationship did not begin right away, when I think of this city, I always associate it with you.

This is why I need to move away.

I hadn’t meant to fall in love. Remember when we bumped into each other at the bar? How there was automatic recognition? And right away I knew I wanted to be close to you.

But, I told myself it wasn’t going to be anything more than a summer fling; I was moving away.

But then I realized what an amazing person you were. I realized it when you played your music for me after we made love for the first time. When you kissed me on the forehead. When you made me laugh by simply being yourself.

I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t leave whatever we were becoming.

But you couldn’t handle my commitment. You couldn’t handle how much I cared for you. You told me you loved me after only 3 months. I waited another month before telling you I felt the same because I knew you wouldn’t be able to handle it.

We were only together for 6 months, but it was the happiest and best 6 months I’ve ever had with another person.

We are still friends. We still love each other: we tell each other every few months when we need to hear kind words.

I know you love me. I know I love you.
I know that we love each other too much to be together.
Because loving someone really is letting go.

So I am going to say goodbye.

But know that if I knew I could still walk away I would have wanted you to hold me one last time, kiss me one last time, tell me that you love me while you look into my eyes, deep into my soul, one last time.

I will always love you.

Letting Go.

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Never Forgot

You transferred to my school halfway through the year and as soon as you sat down I said hello. You were different, you were pierced you were beautiful. It wasn’t until we were at the movies that you said you had a boyfriend, that hurt. At grad you took my breath away.

Now we are married to different people and basically don’t talk but here is the thing I NEVER forgot you. I was just not ready to be who I could be. Now I am becoming a better man and wish I could fly there and just kiss you.

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siempre

to the man whose initials are the same as mine,

I met you when I was young and sad. Vomiting constantly and still in love with my ex who my parents hated. I hated myself and I hated everyone around. And i wasn’t supposed to like you. Your step mom even told me not to like you. That you liked all the girls who worked there. But i couldn’t help myself. You were silly and loved music and full of teenage angst just like me. That summer before college, you saved my life. I needed a friend in the worst kind of way and you did it. i thought you were adorable and funny and had an attitude but never towards me. We were friends and i was too scared you would reject me. too scared it would ruin the only friendship i felt i had at the time. it was us against the world and that song we used to sing. And then the end of that summer came and you were going into the military and me to north carolina. i remember so clearly the day i left and that night when we closed up that pizza place and hugged you goodbye. you were so mad at me for leaving a week early. I wanted to get away so badly but i wanted you to come. but you couldn’t. so you just said goodbye and whatever.

So for two years, i thought about you. i wanted to write you a letter in boot camp and tell you i loved you, because lets face it, i did. but i didn’t. i thought you liked that girl we worked with. i used to give you love advice about how to get her and so i thought i had no chance. And then one day, out of the blue, you called. you called me. said you missed me and wanted to see me. and that’s all it took. i spent all day preparing for that party you took me to. all freaking day. i was so nervous. would you kiss me? did you like me? or were we just friends?

but that night you did. and it was awesome. i l felt like a million balloons had popped in my heart. i was high and giddy and couldn’t wait to tell my best friend about you. and after all these years, i still feel like that. like i’m 18 again. like the first day i saw you, with your dumb high socks and flat brimmed hat singing a song that i liked and thought no one else did.

even when we broke up because i had a stalker and my life was a disaster, i still loved you. i was so heartbroken. all i did was cry and vomit and vomit and cry, thinking about you. i couldn’t breathe. i was every cliche in the world and i couldn’t help myself. every stupid song on the radio was about us or me or you. everything i watched on TV was a anthem or tribute to us. every time i saw the color purple, i thought of you. i was pathetic. i couldn’t take it. i was going crazy. so i called you. i was scared. But alas, you still loved me. i don’t know why, but then again i do.

and now, years later, you are still moody and temperamental. you are still funny and silly and still love music. It’s probably unhealthy to love someone so much. you get frustrated easily but you love me so intensely. you are the same person i fell in love with but different and i still love you. even when you’re mad, i still need you. even when i dislike you, i love you. i love the hair on your chest, though i hate hair on anyone else. i love the way you smell, even when you stink. i love your voice, even though you say you can’t sing. and i will go on loving you, until the day i die like every stupid love song and every stupid chick flick, til they lay me in the ground, til my heart takes its very last beat. i feel like i need to say amen, though you know we both don’t believe in god. i write you this letter to finally tell you just so you know, te amo, mi amor. te amo siempre.

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