Molasses Drops

About 15 minutes into my drive home from work, or a few hairs past midnight, or even in my shower thoughts I think about our conversations- the jokes and smiles and sweetness.

As time passes these memories almost seem like dreams, did they really happen? Did you really come over to talk to me that day? It could be a figment of my imagination, crystallized in reality.

I really like you, and I like to think this affection is unique but it could be inflated and distorted, especially with our obscure interactions drifting not away but to be preserved for my eyes only.

I must reason to talk to you, to come by, casually as if by accident heaven forbid I mean to purposely speak to you. All part of this game with unspoken rules and no clear winner.

I truly believe all mix CDs, if they are made in earnest, are love notes. We've exchanged a few. And I have them, I can hold them in my hands, they are in my car for safe keeping, they are real. They serve as evidence to myself, when I try to reconcile whether or not you showed care for me.

Every work day presents an opportunity to see you and talk nonchalantly as if I don't care in order to follow imaginary rules of how to make people like you. Completely self-defeating in nature, I can't be sure I will have any more memories of us that are not old flirtations seen through rose-colored crystal.

When you imagine yourself growing up you think that you will build knowledge up and down like throwing clay on the wheel slowly shedding clay until your piece matures

But I feel as though my growth into adulthood leaves more questions than answers with every new experience comes an improved ability to heal but a depreciated sense of understanding

Love, which was maybe a theory, has become an urban legend there doesn't seem to be a formula or anyway of knowing what I want or what will happen

And yet I feel like I see it all coming like a car crash in slow motion self-sabotage manipulation over attachment sadness badness madness

Then I meet someone new and pretend he's different and that my past is like a bad cartoon episode that I can laugh off "what were the writers thinking?!"

Your mind like a contained wildfire I wish I had even the pilot light of you I feel like we see each other like long lost twins or two kids in two different cars seeing each other on the freeway wondering where the other is going wanting our lives to be more similar than different

I think of you always the thought throbs like a giant mosquito bite and if I scratch too hard I might break flesh but the rush of blood under the bump and the flaky, powdery circumference of skin draws me near

I want to know everything about you every pain you've felt and the most profound thing you've seen in this life I want to know why you like art the way you do and why I've never met someone who sees eye to eye with me until now and how I can even achieve a thirst for emotional knowledge such as yours

I am nervous that I will ruin something that I will be a diversion, not of pleasure, but of frivolity if we had something it would inevitably lead to nowhere and not last and not mean anything in a few years except we'll have the memory of it getting awkward at work when we got coffee the day after sleeping together or something

But a shred of me hopes that our similar interests don't just extend to the 2-D names we namedrop like trading and collecting baseball cards but show the dim light of some kind of shared intelligence and search for a pain and growth that can only be ignited by us trying something scary

Self hatred induced by the self centered Does he know what he’s doing?

My voice, quiet as a church mouse, just as it was in childhood musicals, when I was forced to shout in order for my teacher to leave me alone and silence my internal embarrassing scream. He reduces me to a prepubescent age, I cant be heard over the sound of his ego-- or his demos he plays at full blast on my stereo.

At the end of the never-ending vacation I want to break. Tears roll down my cheek, they dry up with the empathizing heatwave. 

The tears are covered by his monolithic iphone, he cannot pry from his eyes. He challenges himself by seeing how many seconds he can bear not looking at it-- about 2 --I dont know if I’m happy I’m hidden, or in hell because he doesn’t recognize his girlfriend, who drove the entire weekend, is crying less than a foot away from him.

The flood comes. The surge of self hating sentiments. Do i know what I’m doing? I cannot believe I let myself give more than I have What would be called “too much” or “grand gestures.”

I don’t want reparations disguised as thank-you’s. I want something that is too late to give, and is built with a structure of attention and willful consideration,

And all i keep asking is Why do I let myself fall into this pattern again? I falter harder every time.

It gets harder to keep a straight face when tears rolls down like sweat and my face is as stone cold and distant as it ever was. He either cannot see or denies what he sees.

I stop at an old ‘50s cafe, the kind that leaves gum with the check, and forbids dancing on tables. I hope the unchanged scene will put my mind at ease. He and I get cows, one black one brown, I pay for both. I compare the desire for ice cream to raising children, sweet in thought and pretense and sickeningly regretful once complete

We continue on. My face is dry. I’ve convinced him I’m happy The rolling scenarios of breaking down in front of him-- ruining his day, confessing I am here and have concerns, opening the possibility that perhaps I’m “too boring” for him, or serious, or sensitive-- are packed away tightly. The overstuffed closet is closed when you put your shoulder in it.

He leaves when we arrive. Maybe he saw a glimpse of what lurked in the closet, but I disregard his attempt to thank me just like I disregarded his initial move toward romance.

It took negotiation to agree to this partnership.

Permission to feel loved by someone who I think may be above me, but I can't tell if the wrinkles around your smile are genuine.

You have said we're physically compatible, but I can't compete with someone who is comfortable with her body. I don't sway my hips with effortless charm, I've never learned to flirt.

I'm not sure what we're doing and when I attempt to put it in words it becomes a joke that has no laughs or punchline, said out of a naive embarassment to hide all things serious.

Is our silence comfortable? -or only when lying on my bed in exhausted ecstacy?

-those wrinkles around your smile-

I think I might love you.

The committee is in talks The board of 20 middle aged men, with the one exception The off kilter guy who cant read his handwriting

The committee lives in my head Deciding what i feel, what i want How i should respond

And right now Theyre wondering what its going to be like When you go The one who created them When you said the way i think is like a committee coming to order Will they disappear? The men argue and gavels bang What to do, what to do

They dont want to be filed away With the pet names of prior And lost forlorn love notes That are only seen with a stagnant gaze Like an unfinished puzzle that you’re considering piling back in the box But havent

I see us in a deli in a cafe at a park in the sun

memory snapshots from the future idyllic moments of pure solace like unopened candy im too scared to tell you about these visions 'cause thats what they are, visions

the thought puts my mind in a childish place i invented when i was young the utopia of sun and breeze where endless possibilities are akin to breakfast food and fresh squeezed orange juice

it almost pains me to think of this place bringing it from my eyes and out of my mouth it equates loss of innocence an upturned ice cream cone

and the fear is that i will be the one to knock the cone to smash the all day sucker and in the candy glass mirror see the sucker i really am

but looking at your face with my eyes closed puts my mind at the place we drew as children the lumpy grass field with the big smiling sun above (the sun wears sunglasses of course) maybe an oversized calico cat is nearby an equally oversized daisy

then we become the strangers ive always wanted to be the clip art the randos in photo frames that look so damn happy i want to be a stranger to myself and eat eggs in a basket