Four Truisms
Four Truisms, Number One: Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
After you are gone, that's when I know how to say to you all the things I want to say, all the secrets I want to confess.
Like tonight, hours after you have left, I work up the courage to answer you truthfully. But you are long gone, at home, asleep in your bed. And I am up, way past my bedtime, and starving.
It should be easy; the words should slip right off my tongue, I have thought about them -- and you -- so much. But I am afraid, of course, like always, and it is easier to live in fear and do nothing and maintain that fragile bubble of hope, than to risk it all by talking about it out loud. It could go horribly horribly wrong.
Of course, it could go horribly right. But I'm too much of a pansy (yet) to try it.
Four Truisms, Number Two: Fortune Favours the Brave
I wonder if you like me the way that I like you.
As I said, I am too chickenshit to just ask you, so all I can do is wonder.
I wonder if you talk about me to others, like I talk about you. I talk to people who know you, just to hear them talk about you. They say what I already know: you are wonderful, sweet and awkward. They have nothing but respect and praise for you.
Your name slips into conversation intermitantly: "S___ would like this," "the other day S___ and I did that," "S___ should be here." I think Chris may have noted how often I say your name.
I know I frustrate Jess. I am all talk and no action and she bears the worst of it. Jenna asks after you, politely, asks me if I still like you.
I wonder what other people see when they look at us. Do they see an "us"? is there any sort of "us" to see?
Tom invited us to visit him in Sydney when he moves there. "You two can share my blow-up mattress," he says. There is a moment when neither of us know what to say to that, then we both shrug and say "sure."
Four Truisms, Number Three: Too Good to Be True
I want to meet your dark side.
God, you are wonderful: vivacious, funny, articulate, genteel, considerate, grounded, compassionate, witty, creative, talented, a born performer, a silver-tongued complimenter. No one speaks of you with anything less than respect and praise. Often they speak of you with love and awe. You are, almost, too good to be true.
I want to meet the bitch in you. The less noble truths. The dark humour, and the cattiness and the faggy queen I've only glimpsed. The moments of envy and greed. I want to get to know the kinks and the hungers and the wants. The dirty little secrets.
Your flaws make you perfect.
Four Truisms, Number Four: Shared Joy is Double Joy
The secret fell from your lips so casually, I almost didn't notice it for what it was: a confession, a confidence. It answered -- oh, only a handful of the hundreds of questions I haven't (yet) asked you. But it covered the basics.
And I answered it withj a confession of my own: not really a secret, not anymore, but not something I am in the habit of declaring much these days. There doesn't seem to be that much of a need to say it.
But I told you, becuase you didn't know, and because it gave us another something in common. And you were excited, and I was excited, and we shared doubts and fears and expressions of indignation. "We have to have a big chat sometime soon," you said and I invited you in for tea.
But you had to leave again, after the tea and without the chat, and so I said it again as we hugged: "we have to have a big chat about this, sometime, you and I," and we kissed quickly, and paused and there was a moment of unsaid things and then we kissed again. We grow closer, I feel, every time we part.
Almost as an aside, you call to me the name of a boy you fancy as you fumble with your keys and throw your jumper on the backseat of the car. You ask me if there is anyone I fancy, and I hesitate, fumble over my thoughts. This would be the opportune moment, as Jess would say, and I wanted to tell you then what I know I must tell you soon. But there was a car, and a gutter and a footpath between us, and I couldn't find it in me to call it out like that. So I give you a smile and a half truth and the name of a girl who cracks whips over her head. We share grins like conspirators and you shut your door. I lean over the fence and blow kisses as you drive away.
Later, hours later, hungry in my kitchen, I think of what I want to say, what I should have said, what I might say next time I se you and will have to say soon.
Or not at all.
After you are gone, that's when I know how to say to you all the things I want to say, all the secrets I want to confess.
Like tonight, hours after you have left, I work up the courage to answer you truthfully. But you are long gone, at home, asleep in your bed. And I am up, way past my bedtime, and starving.
It should be easy; the words should slip right off my tongue, I have thought about them -- and you -- so much. But I am afraid, of course, like always, and it is easier to live in fear and do nothing and maintain that fragile bubble of hope, than to risk it all by talking about it out loud. It could go horribly horribly wrong.
Of course, it could go horribly right. But I'm too much of a pansy (yet) to try it.
Four Truisms, Number Two: Fortune Favours the Brave
I wonder if you like me the way that I like you.
As I said, I am too chickenshit to just ask you, so all I can do is wonder.
I wonder if you talk about me to others, like I talk about you. I talk to people who know you, just to hear them talk about you. They say what I already know: you are wonderful, sweet and awkward. They have nothing but respect and praise for you.
Your name slips into conversation intermitantly: "S___ would like this," "the other day S___ and I did that," "S___ should be here." I think Chris may have noted how often I say your name.
I know I frustrate Jess. I am all talk and no action and she bears the worst of it. Jenna asks after you, politely, asks me if I still like you.
I wonder what other people see when they look at us. Do they see an "us"? is there any sort of "us" to see?
Tom invited us to visit him in Sydney when he moves there. "You two can share my blow-up mattress," he says. There is a moment when neither of us know what to say to that, then we both shrug and say "sure."
Four Truisms, Number Three: Too Good to Be True
I want to meet your dark side.
God, you are wonderful: vivacious, funny, articulate, genteel, considerate, grounded, compassionate, witty, creative, talented, a born performer, a silver-tongued complimenter. No one speaks of you with anything less than respect and praise. Often they speak of you with love and awe. You are, almost, too good to be true.
I want to meet the bitch in you. The less noble truths. The dark humour, and the cattiness and the faggy queen I've only glimpsed. The moments of envy and greed. I want to get to know the kinks and the hungers and the wants. The dirty little secrets.
Your flaws make you perfect.
Four Truisms, Number Four: Shared Joy is Double Joy
The secret fell from your lips so casually, I almost didn't notice it for what it was: a confession, a confidence. It answered -- oh, only a handful of the hundreds of questions I haven't (yet) asked you. But it covered the basics.
And I answered it withj a confession of my own: not really a secret, not anymore, but not something I am in the habit of declaring much these days. There doesn't seem to be that much of a need to say it.
But I told you, becuase you didn't know, and because it gave us another something in common. And you were excited, and I was excited, and we shared doubts and fears and expressions of indignation. "We have to have a big chat sometime soon," you said and I invited you in for tea.
But you had to leave again, after the tea and without the chat, and so I said it again as we hugged: "we have to have a big chat about this, sometime, you and I," and we kissed quickly, and paused and there was a moment of unsaid things and then we kissed again. We grow closer, I feel, every time we part.
Almost as an aside, you call to me the name of a boy you fancy as you fumble with your keys and throw your jumper on the backseat of the car. You ask me if there is anyone I fancy, and I hesitate, fumble over my thoughts. This would be the opportune moment, as Jess would say, and I wanted to tell you then what I know I must tell you soon. But there was a car, and a gutter and a footpath between us, and I couldn't find it in me to call it out like that. So I give you a smile and a half truth and the name of a girl who cracks whips over her head. We share grins like conspirators and you shut your door. I lean over the fence and blow kisses as you drive away.
Later, hours later, hungry in my kitchen, I think of what I want to say, what I should have said, what I might say next time I se you and will have to say soon.
Or not at all.