i peeled off the tights in such a hurry. there were holes in the feet and my toes were poking through and i was embarrassed. so i got out of them, fast as could. no show of it, just off.

there was so much i didn't want you to see. because if you saw, well then you'd know everything. and i am nothing if not deeply prideful.

i dreamt a few nights back that i reached for you. we were sitting in a car. a car? headed somewhere. and i reached my arm out to cup the back of your neck--that sacred space between shoulders and tufts of hair. but i couldn't quite reach. you were just past arm's distance.

i did that. i get that. i kept you there. i reached but never let you get closer than the span of my wing. and i would turn over and roll away because i didn't want you to think i needed you. it was casual and i was cool and i was fine, so i responded to everything dismissively and carefully navigated your questions, revealing nothing, all the while keeping to my side of the bed.

because, well, to reveal reveal anything would be to reveal everything. and i was nothing if not afraid.

i know you saw how my cheeks flushed. and watched as i averted my eyes again and again--not wanting you to catch the half-glints of a secret shame. and there were all those terrible jokes i told just to keep the levity?

self-preservation.

to imagine a world in which you might care for me was impossible. it had been so impossible for so long that it was simply a luxury i couldn't afford. the cost would be too much.

so instead i'd keep myself awake at night just to study the outline of your face, the curve of your back, the color of your skin, how you shifted and moved as light angled its way into the room.

the thing is... no one tells you about that moment--that moment well into the night when you get up to use the bathroom and you spend a minute in there--breathing, water on the face, studying yourself in his oversized, knit shirt and then you open the door to return to bed, and yes, he's still there and he's still asleep but his arm is reached out to the empty space where you were just minutes before. and you climb in--and he pulls you in. into him. all without ever really waking.

his awareness of your absence. no one prepares you for that.

there have been others, of course. other stories. other half-loves. triumphs and tragedies of this fragile heart. and it was early on that i came to accept i'd never tell you--you, the first man i ever loved, those three words: i. and love. and you. my love for you would simply be. it would shift and change and recede. and it would fill me up. and i'd move on. to the next. we all cope. we all adapt and adjust and accept.

but there was this sense, this desperate, ne'r talked of hope that we might cycle back and, then what?

i. and love. and you.

i. and love. and you.

i love the way the avett brothers put it. everything aspires to music, doesn't it? the ands there giving the words room to breath. so very shakespearean.

on saturday, with josh, naomi, and little eleanor in town, our group of friends had a college reunion of sorts. and like all reunions there was good food, plenty of laughter, and reminiscing.

but it was more than that.

there was a point when i leaned back in my chair, took note of the surroundings and the stories unfolding and thought, this meal is prayer made manifest. both prayer of the present as well as the future.

i studied the messy table littered with half-eaten food, crumbs that only eleanor could have made, and i sent up a silent plea: let there always be children. let there always be mess. and children's books. let there be plentiful food and drink. fresh flowers on the table. the music of a good joke and the subsequent cascade of laughter. let there be shared looks between old friends and the gentle palm of a hand on the back by someone who's seen you cycle through good, bad and all that is between. let there be love. of friends. of partners. of children. of another memory in the making.

thinking a trip to d.c. might be a good way to kick off the new year. more memories to be made. more stories to be told.

okay, i'll go first.

i just had to share...

my manhattan: the one downtown with vietnamese food, a soy latte, market shopping, hints of christmas, and yet another coffee (this one to end the day)

reunion.

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