I climb into a bubble with you. At first it was just my bubble. I would practice wrapping myself in it for you. Practice feeling the touching of you through this bubble where it was just me by myself, practicing feeling you. And sometimes when we were together, when I had invited you to a fucking and you said yes, i would step aside and watch you and me fucking and I stood in my bubble and watched you; you were there fully, doing what I was doing, us fucking one another, each other, the other. And I saw you see me smile, and you smiled. There. Then. I had already invited you into my bubble where you were with me and I could practice feeling the touching of you with you there.
That’s what I wanted to say to her but that hadn’t happened yet. When she asked if I was in love with her. She would not understand that answer from me. She was still caught up in trying to translate the most basic things of me that it would have been impossible for me to get through just using the word “fucking” for what she called “making love”. See the words make a difference. It’s not just the word itself but how and when and tone. They can mean the same thing but they often only mean opposite sides of the the same thing; like one is good and one is bad. One you do with the one you love; one you do with only throwaways. So fucking means throwaway and making love means keep and God forbid you should want to keep the one you fuck.
That’s where we would end up. Not at the place where I fell in love with her. So what I said instead was “no, I’m not in love with you.” She was surprised. I knew she was surprised. Everyone was always in love with her. I loved the idea of her for a very long time. From the moment I met her really but I wasn’t what she wanted and we disappeared from each other quite easily. But then she would show up in my dreams, shadowy and smiling and I would look for her passively, like show up to group gatherings at the places she liked to go or ask people about her and then there she was. Long after I had given up seeing her again. But when I did, when I saw her…beeline.
what happened between then and now is just color commentary. I was hers but she kept picking me up and putting me down and I didn’t care. I was staying close. I would bask in the moments when she would let me inside of her bubble. I could see more of her. I could see the mask; could see that she knew that I saw it and would let me behind and she would show off for me in all of her glory. Then. Again. Every time. I would fall again and again and again.
So I said “No, when she asked” because I hadn’t fallen again. But I would. I did. I will. Always.