i was wrong. i'm glad i talked to you about it. i'm glad you told me i'm being silly. i'm glad you called me and talked to me into the night.

i miss you. and february is finally rolling closer.

i don't know if i can do this. it's too hard. it's making me too crazy. though i do like crazy.

i feel vulnerable. even though i haven't put that much out there yet, it's all in my head. i feel like i'm bound to be played. and i fear it will be a hard and fast game that will take me much anger and depression to get over. everyone's right about me; i think too much.

but i get the feeling that you know the game as well as i do, and i haven't had a worthy opponent in a long time. my biggest fear is that i've finally met my match. scratch that--my superior. we'll see...

i didn't mean to say "don't ask." i didn't mean to say "nothing." i want to spill everything to you. you make me want to dive into you and hide and be honest and be true. on top of always wanting you inside me, i want these things. that's not what's making me sad, but it's what i'm thinking about now. i know you're busy, and tired, and 3 hours of difference away, and going through a whole lot of serious life things... but i really miss you and i'm not understanding why. i mean, i know why...but why did just a few nights with you do this to me? i'm not like this... i don't trip out over new people like this. and i wish you would spill all over me. in every meaning of that sentence imaginable. it's stupid, i know. but you bring out things in me i either didn't know were there, or i long thought were dead. i want too much--i know this--and i'm being very impatient. and i can't believe i'm going to hit the 'send' button...but i am. for what it's worth...

it will never be enough. you want too much. you always have. most likely you always will.

don't let him send quick hellos and get away with it. but you will. you will never tell him. you will convince yourself, whether it's true or not, that he doesn't care. you will tell yourself that because he never asks any questions, never asks the right questions, that he isn't worth sharing any information with. all the while never realizing that the questions won't come if there's nothing to ask.

stop thinking about what he said that one time. it wasn't true. you knew it then and you know it now. february is too far away and too close and will be too short to change any of this.

and if it isn't, it will only be because you're kidding yourself.

and then he sends a message. and for a moment you think this hasn't been for naught.

but you know better.

you know this...

a word of advice: don't open the trunk that you haven't opened in years and years if you're not prepared to deal with the emotionality that comes with it. and really don't do it when you've had a couple beers. and don't then decide to start popping in tapes from ten years ago, thinking that will help at all. and while you're listening to those tapes, don't read the letters you saved from your old friends. the letters they wrote to you when you were at bootcamp and missing them more than you could ever say, because you're not the type of person to ever let someone know how much they mean to you. and in those letters there might be a letter from your dad, who was always positioned securely behind a newspaper, his feet up on his la-z-boy. the man who you love more than (of course) you'll ever tell him, and he wrote a letter to you on his very own. not just a note at the end of a mom-fest; an actual card picked out specially for you, with an entire letter written inside. yeah, don't read that. it'll kill you. really. and stop monitoring your cell phone and your msn messenger, because it's late in the east and he's not going to correspond. deal with it. stop being sad and just deal with it. and in dealing with it, don't put a different tape in and open a new letter. you're stupid. you know this. yet every couple years you do this. and it never feels good. there is only one thing that makes you feel good; that has ever made you feel good. and it's not healthy, either. so find something new, already. jesus christ. and, no, the tape you made, the tape you listened to the night you flipped your car--it isn't going to help. but you know this...

i'm talking to you right now, and i don't know what it is you're doing to me. this feels familiar, yet foreign. because it's you. and i don't know where you came from, or how i got so lucky, but i honestly don't know if i can take this much longer. you're too much, too perfect, so right. i'm a fucking moron, aren't i? isn't it always like this in the beginning? there's nothing so great here, is there?

but what if there is? what if there could be? why do i say too much to you? i fear it will drive you away. but maybe that would be okay, because then i would know that i put everything out there, and even mr. perfect didn't want it. at least i'd learn something. but god i hope i don't scare you away.

why does it feel like all of this is happening so fast? so fast and still i'm impatient... the phone calls are continuing, though i'm a bit wary whether it's because you actually want to talk to me, or if it's more along the lines of:

"how long can i string you along, how little of myself can i give, and still make you believe i care?"

because february is slowly rolling closer, and maybe it's just a week of bedfun in orlando that you're gunning for.

i like you too much to be strung along. but enough that i'll allow myself to be fooled once. just once. i'll convince myself there might be something here, as long as i get to touch you in the process. i'm becoming obsessed with thoughts of your touch. of kissing you, biting you. of curling up next to you in bed or on a couch, limbs all in knots, silently passing the time.

i miss you. dammit.

you have infected me. i cannot lay in a bed and not think about you. i cannot stare at my computer screen without thinking about you. i spend a good portion of time checking my cell phone for messages.

i miss you. i barely know you. i want you inside me. now. soon. forever.

i had forgotten what this felt like. this rush of lust and emotion. i thought it wouldn't happen again. but here you are.

i wonder what you're going to end up doing with me...

man, it's been a while. so much to tell...

i met someone. i'm getting divorced. those things didn't happen in that order. thank god--who needs the added drama? the separation is running as smoothly as these things can run, which is saying a lot. i think i finally convinced him that we were just simply moving in different directions. such a cliche. but so true. how much more time was i going to waste standing still, not loving him? he deserves to be loved. i deserve to love someone. so we have to part.

i think i'm going to be in love with my new apartment. i've never lived alone. i hope it doesn't crush me. crushing things tend to apply slow pressure in slow increments. and i'm not even aware until weeks later when i'm flattened to the floor, staring at the ceiling and fighting the sudden implosive feelings. ah, no one to plan around, to walk around, to eat around. all the space all to myself all of the time. the first few days, at least, will feel like heaven.

and him. the new him. goddammit. i'm falling so hard and so fast that i'm still denying that i'm falling at all. he came out of nowhere and did everything perfectly. so perfect. so many pieces of my past. all these pieces of other lovers, the only pieces i liked of them, all rolled up into one man. all the times i wondered could there possibly be someone out there that has his hands, but his passion, and his brain, and the other one's sweetness? and he's finally shown his face. finally rolled up a month after the decision to divorce was final. he lives 3,000 miles away, so of course this feels like rotten timing. but what if i had met him months ago? i wouldn't have been available. and what if six months from now? by then i would have probably found someone to keep me company and might not have even noticed him. the fates that guided him across my path knew exactly what they were doing. he seems to know exactly what he's doing.

i miss him. only three days spent with him, over two weeks ago, and i still can't handle the distance. it's like a raw sore inside, pulsing and gasping. it's only sated (partially) when i talk to him, which is never often enough. nothing is ever enough for me. i should probably warn him of that. though i expect he might be closer to enough than anything ever has. the closest that is possible. i'm afraid to spill for him, scared he will run away. i fear the burn out. the big flame out that is bound to happen with telephone relationships. though i thought the burn out would happen within days of our last rendezvous, and it has yet to arrive. i actually feel this weird kind of patience and comfort. like there's no need to get crazy or harried. that he knows how right this is, how right it is going to be, as well as i do. and that we can just sit and wait out these miles until the time is right to permanently remove the distance. even jealousy hardly shows her face. just a little spark, then a fizzle. even if he finds some momentary play, i feel this newfound confidence that it will still be me he waits for. and i can't believe i'm saying this: i have no problem waiting for him.

but god i miss him. just to kiss him. just to see his hands, stare at his face. just to lay my head on his shoulder. but these things will come. i just have to wait...