I was laying on your bed today, you were sitting on the floor. and at some point my gaze met yours and we stared at one another, grinning silly grins, for a concentrated moment. And I realized its true, its not all talk, its not a bunch of bullshit that I am trying to convince myself is real. No, no. I love you. I'm fucking in love with you.

That was all it took.

In Your Window

My ex girlfriend used to leave me notes clothes-pinned to my mailbox. They never said anything, really. "Biking home, listening to Pat Benetar, thought I'd see if you were around." They made me smile when I found them, that she had been thinking of me, that she had left a little piece of those thoughts for me to find.

I told her that, once. She said she was a bad girlfriend, that she didn't do anything for me. And I said, "you leave me little notes. I like that." She told me that she didn't do it to make me happy. She did it because, well, she was biking home, and I was maybe home and she didn't have anything else to do so she stopped by and when I wasn't home she left a note. It was nothing sweet or endearing. I should know that. nothing sweet.

I wanted to scream at her then, "why admit that?" Why frame the fact that you are thinking about me in such a dull and lifeless way? Why can't you just come out and say it, that you think of me. That you think of me and you don't want to because it might mean something about who you are.

She left me a note two weeks ago. "Biking home, listening to Pat Benetar. Hoped your face might be in the front window." As much as she might have thought, back in the tumult of our what-have-you, that those notes meant nothing more than a circuitous route home, she was wrong. The note was the first in 6 months, and it meant more than anything that she was willing to concede that some days, I passed through her mind as breezily as she biked by my house.

I have learned to not say entirely what I mean. I have learned to let people read what they need to from what I'm saying, so long as I know it won't break them. She could have let me believe that she loved me that much. I knew, after all, that she did. And it wouldn't have changed the trajectory of where we went or who we became. It still would have ended, just as sad and sweet and right as it did. It still would have been worth it. But I wouldn't have felt so stupid at that moment. I wouldn't have felt decieved. I wouldn't have felt so much like I was lying to myself.

For the record, she taught me to be honest. I'll never do it the way she did, all busted broken full out hurting. I'll never tell you an unneccasary truth just to watch your face crumple with the honesty of it all. It wasn't that she was cruel, just that she didn't understand how badly it hurt me to be confronted with a truth I already knew. But I'll tell you now what you need to know.

Usually. Mostly.

On Falling Asleep

I dreamed last night that there were weeds growing across my face. I dreamed that I was sewn into the ground with foliage, that I was tied to myself with vines. That I couldn't escape.

I woke myself up gasping, and moved to the edge of the mattress. Your arm was tucked under my neck, the edges of your fingers curled, half fist, at my shoulder. The dream vines were your arms.

I rolled over and into myself, as far away from the danger of your grasping limbs as the tiny bed would allow. I had dreamed you into a monster and I was afraid of what that might mean. And I shuddered little shocks because the radiant heat of your body was drawing me back to you, terror and all.

You muttered, "what's wrong?" and I knew it wouldn't matter what grasping explanation issued from my lips. I knew you wouldn't be able to hear anything I said, that the best way for me to tell you that I had been afraid was to curl back into you and hope for the best. And I was right; your breath turned even and slow, your arms lost definition and fell into the curve of my hip, you fell back asleep.

I couldn't stop thinking about the weeds growing over my face. I couldn't stop thinking about how I have never grown used to a body laying next to mine. I couldn't stop thinking about the girl who would draw her hand back away from me in her sleep when I tried to grasp it. I couldn't stop thinking of my first boyfriend's head on my chest and how shallow my breath had come on those nights.

I couldn't understand why your thumb in the center of my fist could narrow my focus to only that. I couldn't understand how you could sleep, with your knee propped so awkwardly on my hip. I couldn't understand why, two nights ago, I couldn't sleep because you weren't next to me, and why now, I cannot sleep with you next to me. The illogic felt so big, bigger than the swell of your belly in soft sleep.

You were lying on your back, and I rolled off my cramped shoulder, almost on top of you, back to chest. I was worried that I would wake you up, that my weight would crush your fragile ribs, that I would impede your febrile breath. So I was tentative, I leaned onto you with aching slowness. And as I settled there, I felt the shake and pulse of your heart through my shoulder.

I counted the repetition of your heartbeats . . .two . . .three . . .and I matched my breath to yours, even the catches. And the thump of your pulse through my back did something to my head. It shoved something up, it jarred something out. And I understood, stumbling into sleep, that I had not dreamed your arms into suffocating weeds. I understood that my fears grew rampant in such fertile soil as this. That the warmth of your breath in my bed is soft soil for these things that terrify me; but you are not the root of those vines.

But neither are you their gardener. They are for me to prune back.

I fell asleep again, and I dreamed of trees.