As they Say

Whirlwind weeks wind down to empty space over the weekend and I'm forced to think and feel.

And realize that I haven't been thinking or feeling for a while. Have been simply doing. Working, checking off boxes - I run to face something but then embrace mundanity for the way it blankets these harsher questions. The work day has been, I realize, a monotonous buzz that I've embraced like a sort of serum for a long time.

What do I do in saying "yes" to you? What did I do in saying "yes" to your first invitation? Them, in saying "yes" again and again, in walking downtown, in dinners and movies and - maybe - nights over? I don't know yet.

I think, sometimes, that when you are with someone for the first time in a while your gaze upon everything shifts. Your mind speeds up, but then can only focus on questions through the lens of that person. Everything holds a new meaning through them. You become something new, like you're clay held in their hands, like you're simply an extension of them - am I afraid of that? I don't know. I'm only here in the moments where I'm waiting for you, thinking of you. I'm only here in the times where I stop knowing myself and only know sensation. Just one foot after another. One date after another, my heart beating when I get home and can only think of you throughout the night. Can only think of you until it gets to the point where it is annoying, where I am grasping back at the routine and work day. But you fill my brain like a drug, you cloud my nights and mornings. Is it truly you that I obsess over? Or are you a mirage that I have created, based on tropes and histories and longing?

But romance is a question that eventually gets answered. Perhaps it is answered again only by monotony and routine, but I hope a comforting kind of monotony. Give me nights in, give me quiet conversations, I do not need Cathy and Heathcliff. I do not need the empty violence of the moors. I do not to quiver and shake and demand. I merely need a bowl of soup and the TV on, and you, and me.

The terror sometimes grabs me that you don't contain these questions - maybe you think only of what you can get from me, maybe you've even already gotten all that you came for. Maybe you simply don't think at all. That old problem of "other minds" or something. Maybe you're consumed by me, enraptured by my presence and I could laugh at that, but I begin to see myself in a different light, and there's something someone said about visual pleasure and gazes and being created by who is looking at you. Maybe I only exist in your eyes. Maybe you only exist in mine. Maybe I'm self obsessed, and can only see myself in this relationship. Maybe I'm hurting you already. Maybe I'm going to hurt you. Maybe I'm going to be hurt by you. I know I'm going to be hurt by you.

Last week we got dinner and you told me about your sister and I told you about my best friend from high school. A week before that you kissed me outside of the bar, questioning and kind. You rarely complain to me but listen to all of my frequent complains. You hold my hand and I lean into the awkwardness. You guide the way and learn to let go of my well-trodden old paths. Can we meet in the middle one day? I make you pasta and we sit at my kitchen table and talk about the film we are going to see. And I will you to move closer to me, to move on top of me and obliterate me.

Do you think I'm attractive? Do you think I'm interesting? What do you want out of life? What is your biggest fear? What's your biggest achievement or goal in life? What's your biggest regret? Are you as afraid as I am? Do you think we're getting old? How's the wine? How's the food? Do you want to have children? Did you have a good childhood? I didn't particularly. Wait, didn't mean to say that. So many things I meant to hide from you. What's the point now.

What's your favorite sex position? What are you thinking about when we're having sex? What do you want from life? How much money do you have? Do you care about how much money you have? Do you care about how much money I have? Are you ever lonely? Do I make you less lonely?

What are you hiding from me? What's your favorite book? Do you read? What do you think of the state of the world or the country? What's your favorite sport? What's your go-to drink? What's the last movie you saw? What did you think of last night? Will you kiss me again?

Can we talk? Can we eat? Listen to music, maybe meet each others' friends and parents. Give me a good old-fashioned conflict. A problem to be solved. Can't you tell I'm tired of the way my mind works and dissolves something real into an unidentifiable mush?

God, let's go to a baseball game. You can choose the location, the team, the day. Let's get dressed down and excited. In the warmth of the spring, in the shadow of the city. Let's root for the same team, get hot dogs and beer, let's have a good time. I mean it. With you, I mean it all. With you, I want to have a good time. I want to keep having a good time forever.

I'll embrace it all, I'll embrace the Mondays and the dirt and the tears. The tiny tragedies and silly wins. The stupid fights and questionable hobbies. The friends and the pasts. The futures and the endings.

I guess what I am trying to ask is, do you want to go to a baseball game with me? I guess what I am really trying to say is, "I love you."