28 and Free: bitter delerium

i remember the elation bubbling within as a blue scion xa cruised down the 405 south. elation, not born of love, but of freedom of choice slithered in. i arrived at your doorstep and you let me in. you casually exposed me to jon stewart, and i remembered distinctly the first mp3 you sent me and the coy way you copied papers just down the aisle from me at work.

i stared into your hazel eyes and you stared into mine. i debated a choice and what it meant and where i wanted you. want and need are funny little words.

so for once i demanded what i wanted and i got it.

the tense awkwardness was intimate in its own way and i think it wasn't supposed to be my intimacy. we shared minutes that are locked in at age 28 and there's no going back. no matter where you are today or what time says to me, that moment can't be erased.

a first kiss like none other. i think you'd agree. i can't see a screenwriter on strike jotting that one down in a notebook for the sitcom next season. nor a movie in production filming a moment as naive and strange as that one.

but that was why it meant something and nothing. randomnity. i think you helped me figure it out that night. i preached the gospel of randomness and yet i had no idea what it was. it was like faith and fate wrapped us in a curtain of desire and repellent and we were motionless to stop it. freedom of choice has its price. i see that now. i lost a friend that night, because after our lips pressed and pushed and slid and tongues fought furiously, you weren't the same, and neither was i.

unready to face that fact, were my thoughts. it was morning after and elation turned to lust and neither of us were fated for more. and then we partied and lusted (don't lie, i know you did) and drunkenly said some things perhaps i shouldn't. because lust isn't justifiable and hardly controllable, even in the best of times, and certainly we weren't controlled.

so you left not a note and erased me from your cellular and you accused me of things that were easier on the conscience, even if untrue, because lust and a moment and a locked in memory can't be defeated. and even the future can't change that.