The best of intentions

You'd think I could just say it, but I can't. I don't know how to accurately describe this, this space between us. This place where I get stuck. And I can't describe it. I can't tell you a damn thing, because I don't know a damn thing. I don't know what I'm doing. If maybe it's just that I miss home, I miss feeling close to everything I know, everything I love, and now I'm terribly fair away. I don't know how to function in a world this far away. And I love it here, don't get me wrong. Let's not get confused, I love this city. This is where I should be, and yes, maybe I'm still talking myself into it. I am.

So it's confusing to be here and it's my best friend I'm spending all this time with, and the only reason it becomes complicated is because he is him and I am me and there's a history, of course there's a history, and I thought it was all done, I knew I held the cards but I thought it was done. But I think I'm vulnerable and alone, and the talking myself into loving this city only goes so far, it only goes so far.

Sitting on the couch and not leaving the house for an entire day, reading a good book but wondering what he's thinking in the adjoining room and if I'm ruining this, if I will eventually drive him away. If soon enough, he will hate me for the things I do to his mind, for the way I cause him to feel, for my loneliness and his availability. I love him, just not that way. I love him. But I would have to talk myself into being in love with him. And maybe it would come, in time, but I've given it two years already and I'm not sure it's there. I can give it all day all night all year all next year. I've already given it that. I don't think it's time I need.

But I hold his hand and he kisses me. He touches me. He's in a love affair with my hip bone. With both of them. We sit too close together on the bus. Instead of saying I'm sorry, I touch his hand. Press my fingers to his and look him in the eye, rest my head on his shoulder when I shouldn't, imitate his voice and kiss him where his shoulder and arm meet, this place that is mine. I accuse him of stealing my good pen and then ask him soso nicely, since he's going to the kitchen, to get me a glass of water but only two ice cubes please. I pushed my shirt off my shoulder yesterday to remove a stray hair, to scratch an inch, to - anything, and felt his eyes covering every inch of my bare skin.

It's this hero worship that I don't know how to handle. His adoration of me, when he knows it all, and still: adoration. How can he love me this way? How can I not love him this way?