Hmm.... I wrote all night, at work, when I wasn't elbow-deep in dishes and dreaming. But now that the dizzy has returned, now that my head has been completely boggled for me all over again, I can't remember why the words were so organized, so dispassionate. I can write so calmly about something that shakes me up so, but why? Might as well feel it all, all the way down. Here in the Interim there's no danger.
There are snapshots flying through my mind... this afternoon. Forty-five minutes before I have to leave for work. B is carried by his dreams beyond the reach of my voice for the moment, but because we're dreaming the same dreams, the same steps, the same rooms, the same words, I'm walking with him. Displacing the air just a little in his immediate area, warming it just slightly with my body. Back in my house I'm sprawled on the couch, my laptop beside me, and I'm limp and relaxed in the heat. Not drained so much as quietly thrumming with joy and a certain lingering stunned sensation. I let my head fall back to the cushions with an audible sigh, riding the wave... my head won't stop spinning. I feel powerfully intoxicated, but my sight is glimmering clear, everything around me shining in the light as if it were wet. My mind reels slowly, and I doze a little, music and a voice like mine, but not mine, whispering safety, warmth, love, discovery all around me.
Walking to work... It's cooler outside than it is in my apartment. I look okay in my work clothes. My discman is out of batteries, but it's all right, because right now the quiet is essential. There are four or five ways I can get to work from my house, and today I'm cutting through the alleys so I can look in peoples' back windows. I'm talking to myself again, but not to myself--whispering to you under my breath, but aloud, telling you to look, see, there, and there, did you see? The way the light was on the broken bottle, the leaves making that sound when we walked under, the way the girl in there tilted her head when she heard the phone ring. Do you see? I feel you near me and nodding, seeing everything, missing nothing, and I look more closely because I know you will, I see more clearly and the things around me are bright... so bright I'm blinded by the sun flashing off the windshield of a car and as the haze fades I think I see your shadow pacing mine.
At work, in the back, tying back my hair. John comes in carrying coffee cups. "How are you today?" he asks me.
I open my mouth, but when I try to pick a word for this day, this unbelievable day, I suddenly dry up. In the space of seven hours I've exhausted every synonym for "amazing" I possess, and even finding more in the thesaurus doesn't allow me to encompass what I'm feeling, what this day was like, what you're like. As Michelle comes into the back I struggle between "sublime" and "transcendent" and know I've used those already. It must show on my face... I can feel where my usual blank expression is lifting, there's a look I'm wearing that I haven't worn in... well, ever. John looks at me flapping my jaw helplessly and laughs. "Beatific?" he says, and I nod. There's one I didn't come up with. Michelle just smiles. She's known me for almost a year and a half now, through a fair few of my various infatuations, but she knows when it's too real for words.
Other side of the kitchen... Cholla, cleaning shrimp in the back, also asks me how I am as I put on my bandana. She looks up before I can answer and says, "Did you do something new today? You look... different." I can't help it; out comes the biggest fucking grin in the world, and with it, a feeling inside like biting into an apple, crisp and sweet and sharp. "I'm in love," I tell her, and she laughs. Several minutes later, I'm finishing up my first board of dishes when it hits me like a punch in the middle of the chest: your words, your face before my eyes with sudden crystalline clarity. My lips actually form the words, "I love you," and my legs just--go. I have to lean on the counter for some time before I can stand again. I keep washing, but now a Soundgarden song is running in my head... "Drown me in you...."

I don't think I know anything anymore. I've spent so much time trying to predict, trying to make plans for my future, such as it is. But so much has surprised me, taken me completely flatfooted in the past month, that I've let go of everything I thought I'd had planned. And it's an incredible feeling. Suddenly the whole world is open in front of me, and I realize that I know where my death is, and I can choose it, when I want it, but before then I can go anywhere, do anything, and I can choose who I want to be with me. I don't know where I'm going; I've never felt at home in any place, but rather I feel at home with certain people. I don't know what's going to happen... this giddy intoxication won't last, but there's something behind it that will. And I don't want to plan anymore. I don't want to anticipate. I just want to feel this amazing feeling, not question why it's there or how it happened so fast, just take it for what it is--right--and glory in the way it's made everything brighter. And then we'll go, walk outside and into the world that gets bigger every day, and nothing will destroy me because Katrina is happy because her love loves her, and Brian knows more than he knows he knows, and here in this place I've got four legs now, four legs to walk and run and dance on, and we'll go farther that way, and four eyes to see so much more beauty than I ever did before, and four hands to dig and climb and find and give, and two mouths to tell. What can stand in our way? The world has never seen anything like this before; nor have I. Who knows what could change?

Through this world and everything I've ever seen and want to show you, and everything I know and want to tell you, and everything you've ever done and I want to hear, and everything you say and makes me wild to know more, and everything else that we neither of us know but can always learn, and teach each other. Through this world and into the ocean, and then out past this world, into the black and then into the white, and what is there out there that isn't open and waiting for us to have our twin minds zonked into the ninth dimension? Between the two of us, there's nothing we can't know. And this doesn't have to be a prediction. It doesn't have to be a plan. It's just... anything. Anything can happen, and it'll be okay. I'll still be learning, and I'll still be with you.

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in that doorway.
I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach.
Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
I don't know where I am
I don't know where I've been but I
Know where I want to go

So I thought I'd let you know
These things take forever; I especially am slow
But I realized that I need you, and I wonder if I could come home
With you?

I remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange, you said everything changed,
You felt as if you'd just woken up.
And you said,
This is the first day of my life
I'm glad I didn't die before I met you
But now I don't care, I could go anywhere with you
And I'd probably be happy.

So if you want to come with me
These things take forever, we'll just have to wait and see
But I'd rather be working for a paycheck than
Waiting to win the lottery

This time it's different.
I really think you love me.


What is there that I could say that you don't already know? I love you, and I want you to always be here with me, wherever here ends up being, and it really doesn't matter. Now get your shoes on, phantom, dreamer, whisper in light, twin soul, beloved B, 'cause we're going.

Labels: Brendon, Love