Pause

it is only with radio silence and white noise
that i realize the indefinite truth, i ;

pause
and think of that unnamed day in November,
so far back now that I can only remember the feeling
of cold winter air and not at all the date, nevermind its significance,
when his rough and dry hands found mine and
we fell into the comfortable silence of awkwardly-sized sweaters
and living our misguided passions too loudly.

i learned to play a card game to please you
and you used to smile at me so wide with those brown eyes
that i both loved and disbelieved.

you were half-way there, fit and dark-haired
with a wicked way of manipulating my already confusing situation,
i would tell you about my father’s illness and
you would remind me life was never so hard as yours.

you taught me the art of manipulation and personal restraint,
the latter of which i forget entirely when i fell mistakenly
into a world of flashy cars and high-speed drifts, i

left your semi-flawed life for the appearance of a perfect one,
that dark hair tied back and those eyes so shockingly blue,
tight jeans and leather boots, everything i’d
ever wanted.

(funny, how the dreams of young girls
are so strikingly superficial)

he was beautiful, and i felt empowered
by the immense leap forward that was his hand in mine,
even if it was reluctant; i once passed a mutual acquaintance
on the street and made sure to catch her eye so she would know,
so you would know.

it didn’t take long for the haze
of liquor to lose its appeal, and though i loved the bright lights
and the way we hung around in dark clubs with pretty people, i
could feel the rising narcissism in my throat
and behind my eyes,

i learned how to love myself and then how to love myself too much
from the embrace of a man enchanted by the mirror,
i lost my fragile way and selfless crusade in those eyes.
and then i met you.

don’t get me wrong, i would never lie to you -
it is true that there have been many others in between,
including one particularly amusing incident involving macaroni
and a naive young girl on her first one night stand,
who slept platonically in a stranger’s bed when she realized
that no man ever wanted ‘just friends’ from a willing, charming
eighteen-year-old beauty.

but you were the first person who struck me
as the kind of man to keep.

you were the first experience of radio silence,

the first time i encountered a kind of noise that could
exist in such a way as to keep me alert and put me to sleep.

we could sit out in the sunlight, my head on your lap
and your eyes cast skyward, a drink that smelled mysteriously
of illegality and dysfunctionality in our hands, comfortable
in the way we fit together.

even though, really, we didn’t;
i was small and bright-eyed and addicted to metal
and guns and leather boots and radios and cop cars,
i was driven by an excessive force towards what some may call
‘the law.’

your first social media picture was an explanation
of your love for an intoxication you have told me many times
that you no longer take part in,

and yet you found yourself arrested from it once.

you only half-fit my profile of a perfect mate
and i hardly fit yours, too young too pale too excited,
you had a severe butt chin that only a beard could hide,
and you only chose to sport a beard half the time.

it was exactly this kind of sheer opposite-ness that drove us together.

and exactly this that drove us apart, the way i wanted
things to fit perfectly and how you haphazardly glued mismatched
pieces together instead, we fought wildly and with a kind of anger
i have only experienced a few times in my short life.

i broke down crying and screaming one night when
you wouldn’t answer the phone and i threatened to leave you,
screamed harsh words at an inanimate object that didn’t understand,
couldn’t comprehend the shaking tempest that was my angry body, i

hated you so much, so much, i told you i hated you
and you ignored me, waited for the sobs to stop
and for my mind to return to rationality.

and when the hurricane was done,
despite every word i threw at you and
every unwarranted, uncalled-for name
i cursed at you,

you held me.

unpause.

i realized that i have never really been in love,
except for in that moment when i almost lost you.