I’m wrestling, once again, with the urge to contact you. WTF is wrong with me? Why can’t I just get over you? I mean, seriously, it’s not like we actually met up (after all these years) and had some soul-changing connection. Who knows– maybe you would have found me to be a huge disappointment, a total bore (I’m not exactly 17 anymore). Then again, who’s to say you’re not 247 pounds– and balding?
Truth is, it doesn’t really matter to me what you look like (well, maybe just a little), as I’ve already convinced myself that you’re exactly what I need to make me feel alive again. And, damn me!– for putting the brakes on. Honestly, I really was just scared– and definitely not noble, or strong, or smart. Now I’m kicking myself for letting you go. For never getting the chance to “muddy you up” and get sloppy with you…
Heck, you probably don’t even like to get sloppy. You probably don’t cuss either (let alone use the F-word, like me). Yep, I’m trouble. Deep. Even when you told me that you quit smoking, I couldn’t help but to think, “wtf– I was so hoping we could be bad together; backseat-chain-smokin’-beer-guzzlin’ kind of BAD.” (and I don’t even smoke…)
Of course, I also wrestle with the thought that we would have been totally wrong for each other. Maybe I’ve never been “polished” enough for you (what with the sailor-mouth and all). And maybe, just maybe, you’ve never been quite “bad” enough for me (always such good manners). Why else didn’t we connect all those years ago when we had so many chances? But, if that’s true, why am I still so unsatisfied with the not-knowing? Why do I insist on testing you (and myself)? Why won’t the memories of you stay in the back of my brain where they belong? Why do they keep popping up in my head– now– after all these years?
God knows you weren’t the only high-school crush I entertained. But there you are– teasing me– always just ever so slightly out of my reach. Memories of strip poker, and of being in the same bed with you (yet so far apart). Memories of a party you held when your parents were away: I spilled something on my blouse that evening (beer, wine?), and you let me borrow your sweatshirt (while my top tumbled in your dryer). God, how I wanted you that night. How just having your shirt against my bare skin was almost enough to send me over the edge. Didn’t you know– that when my blouse was finally done drying you were supposed to help me get that damn sweatshirt back over my head (and that my own top was never supposed to have had a fighting chance of going back on)?
And maybe, for me, that’s the thing that bothers me most about you– that I’ve never been able to fully have you (that for years you were right there in front of me, just as I was right in front of you, and yet neither of us reached out to grab the other). I wanted you to grab…
So, damn you!– for being so honorable, so good, and so squeaky clean. Don’t you ever want things to get just a little messy? Don’t you want to reach out and touch me– just once?
(I’m so going to hell for this… )
ETA: original video clip no longer available– had to substitute this one. Crying shame…
It seems worse when you could have had him, he was right there and you just… didn’t…. reach … out. So what are women like us, who yearn for the “possible” supposed to do?
nice work, brother