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Moving................17feb09
It is in stagnation that we brood. And breed. We breed our wicked thoughts about ourselves. We think we can know if we think long enough. If we think long enough, we can fabricate others’ thoughts. We can read their minds, their reactions. We can think what they’re thinking about us.
But we’re wrong. And we tear ourselves apart in our minds in the minds of others. We care so much, more than we’d care to admit. We’re so delicate to each fleeting moment’s press on our lives. We’d rather run away than stay.
She doesn’t want to accept my love, because she thinks I don’t know her. And this is saying quite a bit. The problem is not that I love her, or that I don’t know her. The problem is that she thinks that once I do get to know her, I won’t love her. And that is saying quite a bit, too. Are you so unlovable as you are?
I don’t think so. Not at all. And when I say it it makes you cringe. I love you and your faults. I love the parts you hate about yourself most of all. Your demons that won’t let you rest—I can’t take them away. But I’ll stay. I’ll sit with you. We’ll burn the candle on both ends.
My fingertips are scarred.
I don’t know how to win this fight; I don’t want there to be a fight to win. I’ll fight you to love you, though. I love you and I’ll fight you until the end. I’ll prove it to you over and over until you believe it, until you see that I’m not gonna go anywhere. Or anyway. I won’t be easily distracted from you.
You convince yourself that I’m having fun when I’m not in touch. I’m not. I’m biding my time. Staying away long enough to appear together, without you. Trying to put on a brave face so you don’t see how I’m only the sum of my parts without you, but not exactly whole.
And I’m not supposed to say loving you completes me.
What can I say in lieu of this? I can make up something more crowd-pleasing. Something that doesn’t induce a groan. I didn’t know what I was missing until you found me; now I can’t do without you. No; that’s not it. I’m lost without you. No; too geographically nauseating. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
We’ve grown too close for comfort.
We go places together. The uncharted unknown and it’s timeless; time slips and vanishes and we’ve been standing here, breathless. Clinging to each other in this novelty. But it’s later that’s troublesome. Turning it over in your mind. You wonder what it all means, and how dearly you’ll have to pay.
The loss of continuity eludes me. Were we both not there? I thought everything was all right. Beneath the surface, have we no idea what’s happening? I am terrified beyond belief. I missed something. Somehow, we calculated incorrectly. In all our judgments, in all the things you heard me say in your mind. What did I say, exactly?
I wish I knew what terrified you.
I’m not going anywhere. I’m really not. I’m supposed to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I’m supposed to give up the moment you don’t respond. I’m supposed to slip away when you turn your back for a moment; get up to brush my teeth and never return.
I thought you’d make a run for it while I was in the shower.
