Weekerthan

My bed feels like a garden and my legs feel tethered to it like weeds. Maybe it’s the vicodin, but it wasn’t the wine. I didn’t drink a sip of wine tonight. The week was corkscrewed open and poured close, down my throat, until I curled under the blankets and let myself go. The vicodin, I swear, I had to take because of my back. I slept on it all wrong. And once I fell out of a window. Once I was even in an upside down car. This week, you could say, was an upside down car—except, instead of crashing into rocks, it was served on them with a lemon. You could say that, you know. There are pictures and bottles and rumors to prove it. Too many police officers and not enough heavy breathing. But what happens at the end of the long, autumn nights? Where do we keep the umbrellas when the rain has stopped coming down? I lie slack in bed and ask questions with or without the wine. The vicodin, I promise, won’t answer.

Later, at the Bar.

The new one takes me for wine and oysters, and a few hours later, single malts and charcuterie. We talk about the oysters and other important details of the evening, like the herbed gravity bong, the truffled popcorn and the handful of characters behind the bar. When our lips meet our chins do, too. His hands hold my shoulders. My fingers touch is cheeks. We smell like fine grained booze and thinly sliced meats. We taste like smoke and the aftermath of an expensive date with an effusive appetite.

Rubberbands

There is only so much you can push someone before they snap back, or in this case, snap away from you. Away from me.

Now.

I don’t want to wait to love you, I want to love you now. Maybe this is why I date older men. Maybe this is why I don’t want to date at all.

Serialsly

My last really serious relationship ended in February, 2007.

Since then, I’ve dated upwards of 100 men.

(Okay, that’s a guess, but I bet it’s not far off.)

Since then, I have had unsubstantial relationships with three, maybe four men. Some of them meant something to me and some of them haven’t. I rarely think about The Architect or Mr. Orange. Jon—who was important enough to have a real name—and I still talk. We occasionally go back over what went wrong, which is stupid, considering I’ve moved on and he has been in a serious relationship since we called it quits.

But mostly I’ve dated. There was the Deviled Egg, my best friend’s boss, the Vice Guy, the Owner, the kosher friend-of-a-friend, the coworker, another coworker,  plenty of coworkers, the Asshole, the college friend, the Not Fat Cat guy, the Craigslist Killer, the Williamsburg Waiter, and now, for now, there’s the Writer.

I’ve been, give or take, single since February 2007. I’m coming up on three years of mostly meaningless sex.

And since then, since February 2007, he just jumps from deep love to deep love, a serial monogamist—by comparison—in need of a serious serial killing.

Literrors

Can a writer date a writer?

It’s worked before. Take Mary and Percy Shelley. Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning. Joan Didion and John Dunne. Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes.

Just kidding.

But this one might be doomed. We’re all drawn-out-drama, all thunderstorms and lightening bolts. You know, we’re a conversational shipwreck—in a good way. But sooner or later, my head might end up in the oven.

underscore

There are other things you can say to me

other ways to make me laugh

or smile or throw my arms around you

and say something like

god, i like you

but these are nice so please

don’t think i want you to stop.

All burned out.

Someone reminded me last week that people who are madly in love have spots in their central nervous systems that light up during brain scans.

I call it the spark. They call it the brain stem.

Whatever.

The fact is, it doesn’t matter how many times you kiss me on the couch, or rub my shoulders, or stare at me with a dumb smile on your face. I can feel everything upstairs shut down. There’s no spark, kid. There’s no light in the brain scan. It’s all burned out, and it’s time for you to go.

But I don’t know how to tell you. I don’t think you’ll get it.

So instead I’ll blame it on the fact that I’m allergic to your cat. Tell me what a brain scan would do with that.