#mushtastic

I want to talk to you but I also don’t want to wake you up. I don’t want to have to say goodnight again because I always feel like I need to say something else, I need to tell you one more time that I love you. It’s funny because often when I am with you, I don’t feel like I need to say anything at all. No one quiets me the way you do, makes me feel as safe as you do.

When you hold me the world falls away and it’s just us, laughing. For hours I can sit with you in silence and only speak to you in blinks and sighs. I breathe more freely even when you fall asleep on my chest. You are my weekend, my evening drink, my warm blanket.

But no one lights me up the way you do, either. Your image sets fire to my eyes, burned into the back of my eyelids so that you’re the first thing I see when I wake up. The mere thought of you sends me sitting straight up in bed, ready to get through the day so that I can see you that much sooner. You send shivers down my spine that radiate through every nerve in my body with the smallest bump of your elbow against mine or the brush of your nose against my cheek. 

I feel like the best version of myself with you. Balanced. Less weighted down by the pressure of everything that runs through my head, threatening to drive me insane. There are moments when you look at me with sad eyes, when mine are so dead that you can’t tell if I’m feeling anything at all, and I wonder if you can understand what my mind is like on bad days. I wonder why you’re still with me after I attack you, because you’re so easy for me to channel my anger into.

I feel like my father when you point out, in a fashion like my mom, Are you actually angry or just picking a fight? And you’re right, I’m taking advantage of your trust. And I wonder what you must see in me that merits putting up with the bullshit. But you sit with me, and you wait for me to relax, and you always tell me you’re not mad, you just want to understand why I’m upset. I wish I could explain to you how much your patience means to me, how much disbelief fills me when you stay calm, and rational, and talk me through it. 

You are so beautiful. Handsome. Painfully attractive. When you’re calling me out on my bad behavior and when you’re feeling under the weather, pulling out the puppy eyes so that I’ll make you coffee. When you smile, that enormous smile that first drew me to you, that makes everyone around you want to be your friend. But especially that slightly smaller smile, where your whole face scrunches up in amusement at the conversation or the event happening around you, when you’re laughing so hard that your jaw practically unhinges and the slender smile turns into your entire face. 

When you bury your face in my neck I feel strong, and I hope that I am a comfort to you the way you are to me. You throw yourself onto me and tangle up in my limbs, a little like a frustrated child seeking solace in their bed. I melt when you wrap yourself around me, and turn into a puddle when you refuse to let go. For the first time I feel like the person I’m with needs to be near me as much as I crave their closeness. 

I remember little things from our first few days. You bringing me newspaper so that I could sit on the rain soaked bench at Snug that first night we met. The way you screamed out “Nair?!” when I said I didn’t shave my legs. Pretending we were a couple so that straight guys would leave us alone. Trying to teach Shellie to dance at Snug Harbor, and you stepping in as my partner for demonstration. You and Chevelle “happening to be around” when I started work the next night, and waiting through my entire shift until I was cut. Leaving the bar and immediately being called for coffee with you, kissing you twice (and chastely) before running away, lest I embarrass myself further. The first time you held my hand in public, which was a week or two later at Snug during karaoke. 

The next few weeks are mostly a blur. But I remember seeing you naked for the first time and the intense need I felt to touch every inch of your skin. It’s the same feeling I get every time I see you now, and you must know because I can never keep my hands off you. I vividly remember when you asked me to be your girl. When you were drunk one night and almost blurted out that you “literally” me, over a frozen pizza and peanut m&ms. The lady at McDonald’s asking if we were dressed up to go trick or treating. Watching in amazement at the first time I saw Hobbes play fetch with a plastic straw.

You laugh and ask what I’m thinking when I slip into my “gooey eyes,” when long before we said I Love You, we shared those looks. I stared into your eyes half expecting to see tiny cogs operating my very own personalized cyborg girlfriend, crafted as a cruel prank and programmed to self destruct the second things became serious. You looked back at me with such sincerity that I was sure I was making the whole thing up, because you couldn’t possibly love me that much.

I remember one night we were sitting on the floor of my shower, and we looked at each other like that for the longest time. You asked what I was thinking with that mushy expression on my face, and as always I smiled and shook my head. I swear, when I say nothing, I mean it. I’m not thinking in those moments, I am simply consumed by the feelings you provoke in me. Just feeling them, and trying to show you the effect you have on me, with those small smiles.