What are you searching for at the bottom of that bottle?
Any message to be found, I'm sure you swallowed long ago.
I lose sight of you with every shot glass emptied.

-watch as you grasp at the shadows of the charisma upon which you rely.

You commit to the role of comedian perfectly; ironic
Your wit dulled along with your senses.

- like a court jester with no head to lose.

But someone like you should never play the fool.
"I love you's" mean less when tainted with tastes of whiskey.

And I just want you to want me like I'm that last drop...

I'm not asking you to let me be your sobriety.
I understand dependency...
I know I complicate recovery...

with my red wines and reminiscing.

- and I just want to clear your head like coffee beans...

You tell me I'm intoxicating
- and I don't know how to tell you I don't want to be just another drug.

Laying next to you is like sliding a cotton crew cut over bare skin - and looking into your eyes is a lot less like homework - trying to add and subtract all the ifs and ands and buts - to get an answer. It's more like looking through old photo albums and seeing how far you've come... While the neighbor's dog barks and car doors slam only dozens of feet from the bed in which we lay for hours - tasting each other's tendencies - both spoken and other forms of oral. And I just want to bask in a moment with you - but moments bleed into minutes bleed into memories of clock faces and LCD screens for time checked - time lost? But I wouldn't mind being lost a time or two with you.

Reading back through diary entries...
Old narratives of true love
Before pino noir and paychecks...

I've never felt so far from myself.

I've realized: Writing has become my profession, and no longer my pastime.

I don't want to write about pain anymore.

Forgiveness trumps anger.
Love trumps infidelity.

Compromise trumps all.

...

Life becomes less about being in love, and more about being sane.

I stand still in this room, to look across at you, and grin.
You don't have to understand what this means...
You make me re-evaluate my values.
I'm not sure what this feeling is without the butterflies...
And the heart-stops... and the blushing cheeks.
I don't know this girl who lets you scrunch her face.
And laughs... and plays... and doesn't plan every single second...
I don't think you understand the significance,
Of my words, of my relaxed disposition...
I don't look at clocks when I am around you.

I don't need your affections every minute...
Co-dependency has become enjoyment of company.
Sleeping alone isn't empty, next to you is simply a perk.
Sleeping with you, not a demand, but a pleasure.
Who is this girl, grinning at you across the room...
Letting you tickle her sides... telling you truths
TRUTHS... I don't think you understand the significance of that word...
Of MY words. There are no walls in my words. (only in my chest)
And "I Love You's" aren't spilling from my lips.
And I don't think we understand the significance of that.

I fall hard, blindly, way too quickly.
But I'm not falling right now. I'm standing here, eyes WIDE open.
I see all of you, and I wait... and patience is not a characteristic of mine.
And I don't think you understand the significance of this...
I feel something is happening here...
A realization; one I had read somewhere in a Jonathan Safran Foer novel.
About falling in love so ordinarily, that you begin to think it isn't love at all...
But something much more ordinary.
And.. this is different... but what it is evades me.
I can't diagnose this as "the real thing," because I only know what the "real" thing is not...

Being away from you isn't painful, it just isn't preferred.
I like that I don't have to hold my breath when we're apart.
But, I feel my facade fall away when I walk through your door.
As if there is no need for pretenses in a room with you...
I'm not that girl, and I don't want you to think I am...
I want to use big words, and giggle at their superfluity.
Let you laugh at my pretentiousness- a misnomer- as I'm not faking anything at all.

I like that I look at you... and I don't know exactly what you're thinking.
And I don't think you understand the significance of that...
Control, let go... and I'm not terrified...
And I don't feel like a half, not quite a whole...
But, I'm learning how to be, and who to be...
And I simply have the pleasure of having you along for the journey.

I'm afraid I don't understand the significance of...
    these words, of the realization that you will read them...
        that you will try to qualify each adjective... and understand each verb...
And dissect me...
    and I will try to explain, a kindness I so rarely attempt...
        and I might not make any sense, and I might not know how you feel...
And... I might just be fine with not knowing.

I might just stand, and grin, and not tell you why.
But, not for not knowing,
But... for not needing to understand.

Yet.

*******.





for not realizing what you just lost.