I am Beginning to Have a Thought

A grape fell off the table and you went to get it.  I liked the way you got it.  I could like the way you got a grape off the floor at that moment.  I was that full of love for you.  

If I was younger, I would have thought that maybe a new epoch of loving every motion and every room had just fallen upon me.  But I knew the moment was fleeting, soon again you would just be getting grapes off floors and, questionably, deciding to eat them and my heart would be stone against your warm humming form, which I now realized as the miracle it was, the miracle all moments were.  

You don’t hold onto something like that.  You don’t squeeze it.  If you are lucky enough to be able to kiss someone during it, you might be transmuted into pure air.  But there is no pushing it.  There are just the most sincere smiles.

I realized I probably wouldn’t know when it was over… I felt I should write someone something, so that I, like a delirious fever patient who writes notes of instruction during his few lucid moments, might give you a bit of my true self and my true love for you.  That we are mostly comatose spiritually did not even bother me during this moment, just so long as I could get this missive out, I think I’ll be able to hand it to you after I’ve been particularly nasty and you will be able to see how my irrations and anger just cloud on top of what is at this moment the most sincere, eternal and unquestioning love.  It is blocked from view, it is blocked from my consciousness even.  

And you will be able to forgive me.  Because I am not a bad person, I just am rarely myself.

Jordan:  Oh, about the sponge.  The sponge is a dish sponge, and it’s weird and I know, but I don’t like it touching anything but dishes. 

Chris: Oh, yeah, okay, that’s cool.

Jordan:  I know, it’s like my weird thing.

Chris:  No no it’s fine.  We all have our things.

Jordan:  Yeah, I guess.

Chris:  I like to try and respect everyone’s little things. 

Jordan:  Cool.

Chris:  You know, just so long as you respect my little things.

Jordan:  Right.

Chris:  Like, and this may not be the best time to bring it up, but like I need to feel like I have total freedom with things.

Jordan:  Okay.

Chris:  Like with the dish sponge, ?dish sponge right? Haha, yeah, like with the dish sponge. 

Jordan:  oh

Chris:  I mean, I DON’T need total freedom, not actually.  It’s not like I’m going to bathe myself with the dish sponge or anything.  I just need to FEEL like I could.  Like at all times.  Just decide.  If I needed a sponge bath or something.

Jordan:  Are you talking like in an emergency?

Chris:  No, no, emergency sponge bath? Ha. No.  Just, you know, day to day.  I mean, I don’t have any plans to do it.  It’s not like I have a tub or you know some busty nurse or whatever.  I don’t.  I WISH I did.  Believe me. it’s not like that…  I just need to feel like if I chose to do it, you know, I could.

Jordan:  So you wouldn’t though.

Chris:  Well, that’s not the point, Jordan, now is it?   I mean, if you say to me “so you wouldn’t” and I say “no I wouldn’t” then the whole feeling free thing is defeated.  See, it’s part of the thing.  So, you know, I can say, you know, I don’t have any plans to do it, but I can’t say I won’t ever— at any time— suds up in the sink and just go at my sticky places with some gentle sponging. For example. And we really can’t talk about it either because that just makes me feel like maybe I don’t have total freedom with the sponge to do whatever I please, you know, and then I get all curfuffled.  You know.  Like, eesh! Like, I could strangle you! haha.

Jordan:  So, you can respect my thing with the dish sponge, but you can’t say you won’t disrespect it at some

Chris:  at any

Jordan:  at any point in the future.

Chris:  And I don’t want to ever talk about it.

Jordan:  And you don’t want to ever talk about it.

Chris:  That’s correct sir.

Jordan:  So I could never say,

Chris:  … yeah yeah…

Jordan: “Did you use the sponge for you know, washing yourself…

Chris:  … or whatever…

Jordan:  Or whatever” because that would make you feel like you don’t

Chris:  Have complete dominion over the sponge.

Jordan:  Or whatever.

Chris:  Right, or whatever.

Jordan:  Okay, okay.  I think I can work with that. 

Chris:  Okay, good.  I just wanted to say, you know before anyone steps on anyone’s toes.  Not that I want to feel I can’t step on your toes.

Jordan:  And not that I can say you shouldn’t…

Chris:  (smiles) This is gonna work out perfectly.

Jordan: Oh, one other little thing I have.

Chris:  mm hmm?

Jordan:  I get, well, uncomfortable, I itch, really, I itch whenever I’m talking with someone and I don’t feel it’s going to lead to sex.

Chris:  Okay.  Uh huh.  Well… Do you itch now?

Jordan:  No. (sudden joy) No!

Chris:  I feel completely free to love, man.  That’s my thing!

Jordan:  That’s your thing!

Jordan and Chris jump high five and freeze in place.

This is to say, not without reservation, that the leanings of tireswings, torrential downpours, and motorboats (which when tipped move like ones heart sinks and sympathetically cause a mild nausea known to sailors and townspeople of means ample enough to the purchasing of such experience in rental or retail situations as symbols of timeless but tawdry quality) are not tied to the ticking of knuckles, mail order brides, or the tugging of one’s lip by another’s teeth, for example, without a kiss, in some instances, of sudden sight, birthing rites, or triple A membership.