I think about you all the time. I look at pictures of you. I zoom in on your hands. I love your hands. How slender they are. How all your rings fit perfectly. How you clasp them together against your lips when you are thinking. I am deathly attached to you. And dearly. I know it is not fantastic. I know it is not realistic and there is a deeper meaning to it, that I am lacking emotional intimacy and I am lacking safe relationships.
But you are beautiful And I feel alive sitting across from you then when I leave after the hour is up I feel disoriented. That I will never see you again. And you go back to your life and your husband and you do not think about me apart from how to help me. Or maybe you do think of me. And I will never know because that is the set up we have. Even if I met you on the street, I don’t know if I would feel the same. I know it is because you know me and I am vulnerable with you. But it kills me that I cannot reciprocate anything. It kills me that I cannot give you any relief as you have given me. And it terrifies me that I feel this way and it terrifies me that I cannot tell you without risking my relationship with you. The beautiful, tragic, safe, one-sided relationship.
And I think sometimes you think I’m pathetic and annoying. And inappropriate and sad. I know you think I am sad. And I know you care for me. But I would love to know the extent. Would you die for me? I know you would not. You have a husband and a life and a religion. I am just a job to you. I am your first job and it is intense and interesting and I am glad you get to go home and sleep peacefully next you your husband and take your wig off and be clean and content. I am jealous also. I am jealous of your structure and your contentment and your community. Maybe I want to be you. Maybe I want to be underneath you and on top of you as well. I am ashamed of these feelings but they are real and I know although they are real they are not based in reality. I despise reality though so it is okay. I want to read everything you have read.
I want to eat everything you have eaten. I want to follow your footsteps silently so that I can live a life that is not mine and penetrate you as yourself. You are an escape and I know it. But it doesn’t help that you are beautiful. It doesn’t help you have a warm smile and inviting eyes. And porcelain skin and exaggerated stature. And you meet me at my eyes and you sit in silence with my pain. And you have promise and conviction and support and love. You have your own love that I envy and hope is real for you and I want to feel it as you feel it. And I want to know how it is to love you and hold you. I want to be as your husband’s body and know how to kiss you on top of your head and unravel your scarf and sweater. I want to know all of it and it is devastating to me. I want to tell you but I am afraid. I am afraid of losing you and making things complicated.
So I will take what you can give me and I will give you what I hope you will take. I miss you. I miss you and I haven’t even been to a museum with you. I miss the way you look at a painting and the way you tilt your head to the side, examining the brush strokes and deriving your own meaning. I miss the lunch we share and the way you dab your mouth with a napkin when the mustard or dressing dressed your lips too broadly. I miss the life I could never know because I am not a man and I am not within your realm of experience. I only know you in the 2 hours a week we share where I spill my guts and you nod and console me. And that’s it, and I don’t get to console you but I know it would be too much for me right now. But I want to be able to. I want to be your husband and your lover and I want to show you what it is to love deeply and spontaneously and I fantasize about all of the things we could do if I wasn’t me and you were not you. Please don’t leave me. I need you. I hope part of you needs me.
Place of Leaves 