Moods and Moments

I found God in a cream cheese wonton

You seem too hot to touch-- You're too weird and too wild, With the marks on your skin And your mischievous smile. Uninhibited, free, With that loud, joyful laugh, Diving deep, singing strong, Unashamed, unabashed. With your sharpness of mind And the way your lip curls, You deserve everything That is good in this world. You seem too hot to touch; I'm delighted I've learned How to let myself do it Without getting burned.

Sometimes I think about wild things, like if I spoke to you. Or if I used dancing as an excuse to book an airplane ticket so I could touch you again. Or if you were still living with your parents and you left and came back here and tried living with me, and we slept in the same bed and you made me call my representatives and I taught you how to love yourself and what selfish indulgence feels like. I want to tell you you were good. I want to find out if anyone else can make me feel the way you did, but only if the answer to that question is yes. I want to eat peaches and smoke weed with you on the bank of the Mississippi. I want to get crossfaded with you and fall on top of you laughing, pull myself up by your shoulders and kiss you with that dizzy tingle in my head, swaying into you and loving how this is only dangerous in theory. I want to hear you talk about your feelings and identity. I want you to worship me a little. I might be misremembering this, but I think someone told me once that there's a building with a glass floor hanging over the edge of the Grand Canyon. You feel like that to me: looking down, thinking about falling, and knowing I won't. A place that's suddenly safe.

I'm dressed to the nines and unpleasantly sober and I haven't told you that I'm coming over. I walk toward your room in my black leather heels and from down the hall boom inconsiderate peals of loud laughter. It's late. They'll wake up the whole floor. Then I, rounding the corner, catch sight of your door swinging shut, and the laughter is suddenly quiet. I freeze for a moment, refusing to cry. It's a hasty retreat that I beat in that second, so no one will know I was here. Should have reckoned you wouldn't be lonely, tonight of all nights. You have friends you would actually want to invite.

I wake up every morning to a whisper of your face. I’m dissecting your expressions, checking words for empty space. I think about how you would feel if you had caught me frowning. This fine romance is really just a suicide by drowning. The things I used to love are now submerged in loving you. I can’t remember how to want the things I used to do. There’s something on the surface, and I know I’m in too deep, but you have filled my lungs, and I can’t breathe, and I can’t speak. My consciousness has been eroded softly, over time, and I can’t stand to think of anything but that you’re mine. All light refracts through you, and every image is distorted; you’re in my eyes, my mouth, my nose; I’m sinking, unsupported. I stepped into the shallows, and I swam into the depths; I courted you and it’s my fault I wasn’t ready yet. Someone will have to save me if I am to stay alive, but I'm not sure I want to live. I only want to dive.

SEX ON THE FIRST DATE. ‘I don’t want him to think I’m a slut,’ she says. 'I have to do this right,’ they sigh. What is right? Do you know what it’s like? Six hours in with their hands on your bare back, no ice, still tentative but in a new and different way. I learned your name this morning but I’ll never forget it, not now. I have never felt a thrill like this before Do you know what it’s like? To go fast, skip the small talk. To wake up the next morning delighted, no nerves Do you know what it’s like? Driving a hundred miles an hour down a deserted highway, Jell-O shots on the best night of your life, first place when you didn’t even know you could enter, wild and joyful and giddy.

The sun is setting rosy on the water, and we watch it from my room above the beach. Everything is soft gold and dusty pink around us, even the city; in the early evening light, the cool silver skyscrapers look like they’re blushing. The air is balmy, and the window is open. We can hear the crash of the waves. The sea air mixes with the smell of flowers in the room, and together we relax in a nest of soft pink pillows.

Puts her hands on my hips, says, “Indulge me.” Her lips are as full and as soft as her–well– so I step, and she tips, and she twirls and she dips, and her laughter will send me to hell. And I’m thinking that she’ll be the death of me. Still I am caught; I’m enraptured, entranced. She’s the way to my will; I was sleeping until she got up and she asked me to dance.