days before lunch

Don't trust those East Coast boys, I'm thinking. Especially the ones who grew up here, who left from here, who decided to get as far away from here as possible, without needing a visa, or to die. Don't trust them at all, I'm thinking, with their eyes that have been sharpened by Atlantic gusts and busy crowds of people to the point of being piercing; with their voices, deep and almost growling, but soothing, like a Gregorian chant; with their shoulders broadened even more and their arms muscled; with their wit and their skills, once desires, honed from desires into things they can do; with those smiles, all at once frightening and alluring. Those eyes are hard to look at--those voices are hard to resist--those smiles hard to ignore. Don't let them be a trend, I'm thinking, just in case they lose something in going over there, because they may be coming back here every now and then to find it, if they haven't found it there, but it isn't you--maybe your body, maybe your pride or your dignity, maybe your thoughts, maybe even your heart...but it isn't you.

And I don't want you, I'm thinking; I wanted you then, and I want you now, but it's a different want. Look at me, I try to say, I've changed too. I've changed I've changed I've changed so much! I am wiser to the world, I want to say; whatever innocence I have left is whatever you want to see, want to find, but I am not as innocent as you used to know me, definitely not as chaste. So what I want may be what you want, if you want something more than spending time with an old friend. But I can never convey that through type, and so you won't know until you have less time to decide how to act.

Then again, it's been three long years, and what I want from you now may be honed, with the air you bring back from there, may be honed into something entirely different. I've no idea how things in my gut go anymore, I just try my best to pay attention.

Don't let this be a trend, I plead with myself, I plead silently with him, with you, wherever you are, packing a bag or in the airport or on the plane, in the air right now. Please.