Tender Layered Subtext (Listening to: Good Friday, CocoRosie)

I wrote this a little over a week ago, after one of the most surreal experiences of my life. Art School Boy had a nine hour layover in my city on his way to Vegas to visit his sister in college. He caught a cab downtown, and I grabbed a bus over to meet him.

These are paths I have traveled many times before. The corners and angles are familiar to me, and the sidewalk-squares and benches hold faded memories of my touch, my passing. These are the streets of my hometown. But they are somehow warped, twisted, made strange and foreign like reflections in a funhouse mirror by the simple presence of your footsteps next to mine. The words from my mouth sound as if they are coming from across a long distance. My thoughts turn towards the bizarre jumble of different facts, different days of my life which have been compacted into this moment. And I feel very much alone, walking here next to you. We are deep sea divers who fly to the surface when we see our air supply deplete even the littlest bit, and I hate us for it. Still, the conversation flows between us with few halts, and I find myself acknowledging that it could be worse. So much worse. The sun beats down upon the pavement and our backs. I catch you looking at me every now and again in a way which makes me shiver. In the movie theater, you put your arm around me. I don’t know what to say to you, so I keep quiet. I snap rigid when you take my hand in yours. I am brittle as your nose ruffles along the nape of my neck. Something breaks, with a gasp of breath and a quickened heartbeat, and I lean into you for shelter. I forget for a moment that I resent you for coming here, to my home, my sanctuary. But ever-present lurks that sinking feeling of dread. We leave the theater. You walk me to my bus stop and we hug. It transports me back in time to what is now over a year ago. You say goodbye, and lean in for a kiss. My hands between us form a barrier. I don’t think that’s – and you agree, of course, I am so sorry. I hug you. Goodbye. On the bus across town I struggle not to cry behind my shaded eyes, knowing that I know you and can predict your inevitable mistakes. You’ve undone all my work. My weeks of effort to wipe you away. We should have gone drinking; the tender layered subtext of sober conversation is too overwhelming.

I feel like this needs some explaining. I feel so stupid sometimes, like I'm some freak who has no idea how to react in situations where you're supposed to know what to do. I've always told myself that no, I won't do anything with him, I can't, not after all that he put me through after the first year. And then I completely disregard that the second I'm in the real-life situation of seeing him. I know I sent him some pretty mixed signals by letting him put his arm around me in the movie, and then by not letting him kiss me. I didn't know what to say, I guess. It would have seemed so petty.
But I was able to say no this time because I knew what would happen beforehand, and I could make a decision before the actual situation manifested itself. When he put his arm around me in the theater, I knew that he thought that day was something other than what I wanted. I made the decision then that I would stand up to him that time, that I wouldn't just bend and buckle and give in like before. And it's not that giving in before was wrong of me, or that he won in some way, it just meant that this time was the first, and what distinguishes what we had from a girl just doing what a guy says because he says to. I proved I had a will, I guess.
It's also easier for me to forget him and leave him behind if we don't kiss, if we don't undo all that work I've done forgetting him. And I want to remember us as a sweet first relationship, not as a random hookup whenever we're in the same city. That's all.