distance (part eight)

For a while, I've been writing to him, about him, in the third person. Talking about the image on the canvas, talking to the canvas, instead of the artist standing less than two feet away.
Which is weird, because you were the first in one way; the second in another.

Would I have been happy with you?
For a time, maybe.

If you could tell me, just once, that you were giving me a chance, albeit not much of one, for those couple of months--running me on the treadmill, keeping track of my pulse, checking my sweat--I would rest easier.

I imagine that when you met your family for Thanksgiving that year, you brought up a girl that you liked in at least one part of the ongoing conversation that happens at that sort of thing. Or at least, you thought you did, but maybe you never said it aloud, and swallowed the words with each bite.
Then, at the time, I imagined it was me.

You were a good dancer--you were a favorite lead of mine--you moved well, and you moved me well enough--and perhaps that was one of the worse reasons to lose it over you.

My feet want soft shoes and slick-ish hardwood floors again. Slide, swivel, swivel, step, steehhp, draaaaaag, step step, swivel, spin. Small of my back, upper vertabrae, open palm. Dip. Close. Touching foreheads, partially open mouths.

I also want to drape cloths over snares and toms and learn how to beat them like Bryan Devendorf does.

I also want stronger legs. I want my loans to disappear. I want a lot of things.

These days, I still need to dance, but I don't need a dancer.

-Dana Winter