heart felt

It’s not like you can decide whom your heart loves,
she told herself, because
it loves whomever it wants to love.
How do I react to that?
That’s where the deciding comes in. I can decide to love, or decide to fight whom I love. Fighting it
is more difficult, she knew,
because fighting it was/is denying it and
the
heart
does not like to be denied. It needs more than denial;
it
needs
convincing. And when was the last time
you were able
to convince
your
heart?
Like … never?

1 day

If he could go back one day, it would be to that day that she said she was leaving and he would block the door, block her way, tell her that what they had and what they could have was, well, was that of which he’d dreamed and he would ask her to stop for a moment and dream, too. This was his whole life, the dream of his entire existence, which, at that time, consisted of almost 20 years. He would tell her that he would love her and protect her and grow with her and that he would swear to her eternal fidelity. He knows how she would react, this second time, as she did the first: she would smile, kiss him on the cheek and tell him, tell him, tell him, that she loved him, but that she needed to go. And he would be struck silent, again. And he would cry, again, weep silently. And he would move forward, again, with her being gone, because that it what he did – moved forward. He would give her a piece of his heart, which he never would request be returned. So, she left with a bit of him, took away a part of him, and would think of him often, but not the way he thought of her. Sadly, she knew.

answer me this

She told him that the Universe
unfolds as it is meant, and he appreciates her
input and her belief, or her Belief, as it is,
but he’s not sure
that he does, believe her Belief, because he always thought that
the ones God loved were those who
helped
themselves. Problem is, he doesn’t know
what
to
do, so her extrapolation seems the best answer, at
this time:
Wait. But move, still. Do not tarry, just
be patient. What is
supposed to happen … will. But,
he thinks,
what
if
it
doesn’t?

redroofin

It was always the moment he finished that she felt so alone. It wasn’t so much because she was left wanting and waiting. Well, some of that. But it was more the disconnecting that followed, the mental and spiritual separation. Up ‘til then. Fuck, yes! God, she loved what he did and how he did it. But, in the end, always, it came to that, and she always was left with this question: Is that my sacrifice? Is that what I need to let go? Will it always be so? She was tired of the questions, mostly because she didn’t have the answers. There was that one time, when she came through without feeling so abandoned. It was in Dover, New Hampshire. One night. They were stuck in a Red Roof Inn. Car troubles. And it was snowing like crazy. And that night, for whatever reason, it was different. For the past six years she’d been chasing that – a snowy, blizzardy Red Roof in Dover, New Hampshire. And he didn’t even know.

driving her crazy

If only he’d seen it this way, earlier. It would’ve saved him yeads. But, then, they’d never been down this road. Right lane ends, ahead. Merge left. She was a mergerightaway driver. He fancied smaller cars and drove right as long as possible, before finding an opening into which to squeeze. Not rudely, mind you. But politely, which is not to say the dozens he’d passed felt very good about him. And it did bother her, him being like, that: in a hurry; always looking a short-cut; celebrating his successes. It made her nervous and otherwise. And when she thought about, which she still did, she rationalized it this way: he was a squeezer. When she went looking for another him, and she did, she made sure she found one who, too, was a mergerightaway driver. It just made things easier. His name was Walt, her first husband. Hers was Imelda. She was Catholic and read the Bible, every day. She had a dog named Stuka.

melissawantslove

She is trying on-line dating, again. It was either that, or hang out in bars or try meeting someone at church – and she was sure that she didn’t want to meet someone at church. Do someone in a church, sometime, maybe, but meet – no. She’d had limited success during previous on-line subscriptions, but most of the men were either boring, bald, overweight or just icky – or all four. What’re the odds, she asked herself that she might actually meet someone with a brain, someone who kept himself in good condition and someone who was, heck, cute or handsome or sexy – and why not! She deserved that. And, quite, frankly, if she happened to meet someone like that, well, maybe he deserved her. Winks were out. Guys who posed with their dogs – same. Guys who … hell, this was a crapshoot. Still, Gloria’d found someone, and she was in Dallas and he was in Glouchester, Mass. And he moved there. Ok, she had a big boobs. But, still? Or was it just time to give up on romance? She did like her life. Might be chancy, someone who might screw it up. But, yes, she did want someone to wake up with – or, as her high school English teacher, the dreamy Mr. Sparke, would say: “…with whom to wake.” She looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. Enough for the night. Her “date” name was Melissawantslove. Caucasian. 5-7. Income – TBD. She was a catch.

aarp-ok'ed

“I told somebody about you, today,” she said, and he felt a spark of what he used to feel, what he wanted to feel, because the news was unsolicited and because it spoke of much more than the simple statement. “She said you were AARP-approved,” she said of what her friend had said, and he started to get defensive, in his own mind, never with her, he felt, or at least hoped, because there it was again: age; difference; fate; reality. She was young, younger than a woman he’d imagined loving at this late date. But he did and there was no answer to that, but to let it go, to her her go. And he was still working on those.

rufus

Her father decided to buy her a dog, just to do something. After all, it was his weekend with her. What kind? he asked. She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure, either, that this was the best way to buy a dog, to just go out and find one, especially at the pet food store, where she’d heard that they boosted dogs from puppy mills. Let’s go to the rescue, she said, so they did and a lady named Beatice, who had crazy red hair and an eagle tattoo and one dangly earring, helped them, bringing out three dogs who needed adoption. Your mother won’t like a dog this big, he said, surveying the lot, and she knew he was right, but the she looked into the eyes of a dog named Rufus and said that he was the one she wanted. Why him? the father asked. Because he reminds me of loneliness, she said. That doesn’t sound like a good reason, the father said, and she shrugged and said, well, I think it is. So, Rufus, it was. On the way back to her mom’s house, Rufus fell asleep in the back seat of the dad's car with his head in her lap. Nevermore, she said quietly to him. Nevermore.

interruptus

I want you to fuck me, she said. No kissing, no groping, none of that dick-around stuff. I just want you hard and inside me. Can you do that? Can you? she asked a second time, while lifting her skirt to her waist with one hand and pulling down her panties and removing them over the black heels with the other. (She kept on the heels.) If you can’t, I’ll find someone who can. You get first crack. You interested? She put her hand on her hip, hooded her eyes, a bit, then twirled the black panties on her forefinger. I’ll even let you tell everyone that you fucked me. If you want. She grabbed the panties with two hands, now, and held them up, under her eyes. I need to know, she said. He looked up at the clock. It was six. Dinner. He needed to fix it. The kids would be hungry. He switched a period to a semi-colon, quit the file, closed his computer. He stood. He was sweating a bit. Well, maybe more than a bit. Chicken casserole coming up.

a shower

She steps into the shower and turns up her face to the spray that forms rivers which cascade down her body, across all the soft spots, across and down the gentle curves and even into those hidden areas that she once opened to him. He remembers some of them, now, with the picture of her in his head, soaking her hair, and recalling, too, how she came to bed with her hair still damp and fresh from her washing and its softness, and how cool it felt against his skin and how it enveloped him without suffocation when she slipped onto his body and kissed his lips and how it, her dampened hair, darkened out everything but her warmth. He remembers, too, the urgency of her breathing, or, better yet, how it became urgent, and how her lips would slide to his neck and remain there, her face buried there, in a resignation, sort of, or was it a surrender, or was it the innocence of a true love? Or was it just in the fleeting of a moment they both knew would someday not return. They would consummate her cleansing, then, with a cleansing consummation. And he wrote it so, now, because there was a spirituality to it that seemed that way – pure, honest, true. Then, he hears a voice over a loudspeaker that says, “The library is closing in 10 minutes," and he stops writing and thinking about ... her. Again.

if at all ...

What if there was a way to
bring them
closer together? A way that might work, a way
that was magical, but yet demanded that there be
a tit-for-tat, in exchange? What if
she could move closer if she surrendered
years of possibility, years of promise, years
of what might be? What if he would
move back if he
gave up years of what was,
of what elated and surprised or what
thrilled and fulfilled? And how much of both?
If it were an even sacrifice? But what
if one had to forgo more
than
another? What then? Who would be
willing to do that? And, perhaps more importantly,
who would be able to deal with the
knowing
of what one had given up for the other?
Perhaps it’s best that neither of both
is
at
all
possible.