catnip

I know what you smell like. How you taste. What the sound of your - slow, quiet, almost inaudible - breathing is like. I watch for the rise and fall as I wonder if you're still alive. In the early morning, a part of me wants to wake you up and grab your smooth, broad back and repeat what we did last night in the half light of my little room. But another part of me just wants you to leave. And once I wake up and these thoughts begin, I lie there, trapped and suffocated. Transfixed by desire. Paralyzed with fear.

I told you you were catnip. You are. If you’ve ever seen a cracked-out cat on catnip, there’s a love/hate with it. It gets all needy with the stuff, then it bites and claws at it, like fuck you, fuck you for making my eyes black with craziness. But I’m so out of control. I liked it at first. But I am high as hell right now and I’m just stuck with want. And need. So fuck you.

Catnip.

I know these things about you now. Like the way your mouth feels, all wet in the shower, and how the water on your lips tastes sweeter somehow. And how I’m crazy for the way you can pick me up like I’m weightless. No matter how many craft beers I’ve bad that day.

Strong arms. Soft lips. Catnip.

I can’t unknow these things, I’m stuck with them.

You reached out to me in a small, innocent way. Over a year ago. An invitation to a party. Nothing big. But months later things were said, things that you say when you’ve had too much bad whiskey or too much loneliness.

Late at night, last winter, you played the guitar for one song, at a bar with your friend. He sang the words, you were the rhythm and the emotion. Afterwards you told me, with this face that looked all honesty and all silly, yet true, that you played to impress me.

Later, at my house, you said you’d always thought about me. Even back then when you weren’t supposed to. 

You even used the word love. Bad whiskey will do that to you.

I didn’t say a thing. But you just laughed and said, “Yeah, love. But not love love. You know what I mean.’

You are the rawest person I’ve ever met. You make no promises. You apologize for nothing. 

I don’t want to miss you. Even though, I do want to miss you. Or, at least, somebody who looks like you. Smells like you. Tastes like you.  

One day you’ll wake up and be in the right place with the right person at the right time. And so will I. But maybe we won't.

In the meantime, I’ll just put my heart in that sling and let people sign my cast. It’s what I’ve done all my life. I’m nothing but an autographed and well-traveled gimpy limb. At least it hasn’t been boring.

Don’t blame me in my sleep, though. I can’t help it if sometimes the character I’m playing loves you there, in some vivid story that gets made, a story that something much bigger tells about the way it is, and I’m just letting it take me where it wants to take me.

It’s not my fault. 

Fuck you catnip. That is the only place I’m not in charge.