IMPRESSION
It starts with a smile.
The smile explodes chaotic into my mind,
Like a good word (lovely, effervescent, exquisite).
Then come the waves of noticing.
Noticing the soft shorelines of your dimples.
Noticing the quick draw of air before you laugh.
Noticing the erratic twitch of your hand,
Against your soft thigh,
Every few minutes like a spastic metronome.
Each endearing happenstance,
Piling upon each other.
An inconvenient truth becomes apparent.
I like you.
Shit.
PROPOSITION
Here's the deal.
Most of the time I spend with you,
Is spent trying not to kiss you.
I see the way you look at me,
And it's a little too friendly for my taste.
So this is me asking you on a date.
An honest to God, getting-to-know-you, date.
At the moment,
My heart is beating faster than
An ADD snare drummer with a cocaine problem.
If this is too close for you,
I can write you a note with a
YES/NO/MAYBE
Box to check.
Like in second grade.
But your eyes make me much too brave for that.
FIRST DATE
The chime of your door,
Sounds like funeral bells.
Even though I'm wearing a suit,
Gallons of cologne,
And enough hair gel to supply
The entire state of New Jersey
For a decade,
I still feel naked.
The door swings open and your father is a giant wall of
"What are you doing here?"
I stutter out your name, and walk past his glare.
You are wearing jeans and a t-shirt,
And you laugh when I walk in.
"I didn't know we were going to be starring in a Broadway musical"
"Just be happy I passed on the white tux"
"Too bad. The white would match your mortified face"
The rest of the night goes like this,
And you always get the last word.
You hold the last word with a death grip.
FIRST KISS
Damn.
It feels like,
I can taste your words,
I can swallow your thoughts,
And I want to savor every bite.
THREE WORDS
We are alone,
For the first time in a long time.
A mass of tangled awkward limbs,
We are smiling.
There's a fly in the corner,
And somehow I'm happy that he bears
Witness to this.
But just when I'm ready,
My left eye starts to twitch,
My breathing beats a rhythm,
My fingers fray explosive.
Words lodge themselves in my throat,
My mouth is a sputtering lawn mower.
"I...I...I..."
My jaw flexes erratic
And I am silent.
It always ends with silence,
As I choke back the sentiment.
I will tell you another time,
When I seem a little more brave,
And you seem a little less beautiful.
GOING STEADY
We mesh together now.
We finish each other's paragraphs.
We still kiss,
But there's no explosion now,
Just a soft crackle.
My hand feels yours like a familiar map.
I probably don't need it,
But I still want it there.
Occasionally I get lost and look at it again,
Tracing the same old roads and worry lines.
I find my way back to home,
Which feels a lot like your body against mine.
FIGHT
Each word stings,
Like a suicidal honeybee.
"Right" is just a figment of our imagination,
Dissolved into our hate.
Tears are first blood,
And there's no medic in sight.
On our final crescendo you yell:
"I hate you"
Yeah.
I hate me too.
THE END
One day,
I was having trouble,
With conviction.
So I made a list of everything,
That made me believe in God.
You,
You were at the top,
In capital letters.
Spelled out like pain,
Or salvation.
The ink was bled from my heart,
The handwriting was messy.
Below that I wrote,
In the same nervous lettering,
YOUR EYES.
And I hate it when people talk about,
"beautiful eyes",
Because eyes are meant to be functional.
And my "beautiful" eyes
Fail to see the clearest things.
But somehow,
And I know this is delusional,
But somehow yours were different.
I wanted to fall into your stare.
Below that,
I wrote a sentence,
Dictated by your voice in my head.
It's delicate and lofting,
"Calm down, I love you"
This isn't the first time I've heard it,
But,
It doesn't feel reassuring anymore.
I write it anyway.
