It goes like this:
You start out standing next to each other in a green green field lit by a white gold sun – spring is beginning. Just the gossamer edges of your Personal Space Bubbles brush up against each other, never popping. Your feet tingle in the grass as it breathes its baby breaths.
You turn, face each other square on, buzzing with the electricity of iris-to-iris connection. One of you reaches out. Soft fingertips smoothing out the cuts and grooves, stopping at the scars to soothe. You touch and touch and touch and touch. And then – maybe, if you’re lucky – you stand side-by-side, fingers laced, facing something that feels like a horizon. You think you see skyscrapers in the distance, but it might just be honeysuckle.
You talk. You talk about the things that fill your little bubbles, letting out the hot air that builds up in winter. It flows around you and through you, wrapping you. You are warm. You are filled with the air of each other and emptied – a little bit – of your own. Still, you do not pop. You could not keep standing if all the air left you. You shimmer in the sun, both of you.
You talk and talk and touch and touch. You lie down in the grass and wake up in the dew, sweating. You hear a siren and think, Who could be having a heart attack, here? You stand to face the rising sun. You have survived the night. You feel like your bubbles have melted together, but this is not the truth (it is just the chemicals inside that mix). His left arm is draped loosely around your shoulders; his hand hangs over your collarbone, flippant and veiny. Your right hand fits exactly into his far butt cheek pocket (he is wearing Levi’s, classic wash). You squeeze.
Eventually you let go of each other and walk in different directions, looking back to smile, blow kisses, blink slowly – assuring. It is only for the both of you that you are walking apart – you must each have your own, after all. It is too early to be always; you are too young and he is still thinking about living in Peru for a year. He would leave in autumn.
Sometimes you’ll run back (simultaneously, miraculously) to touch and touch and touch, in the center, where it started. The grass is cool under your feet, there, and the air smells of dandelions. Other times, just one of you will run while the other stands, back turned. Those times will be the beginning of something. Something separate. You will feel this, but you will still run and you will still stand, in turn. Your hand will feel too big for his pocket. He has started wearing suits.
You will walk and walk and walk and not miss the touching. You will think you feel hot breath filling your ear, but it is just Summer coming. You take off your cardigan and drop it carefully in the grass, hoping mildly that he will find it and bring it back to you. He has not found other shoulders to cover, you tell yourself. You wonder if there are other Bubbles waiting to exhale in the growing green. You fill up again, preparing.
One of you will shout across the field, something like I love you! or I need you! or Hello, how’s the grass over there! The wind will blow it around, mixing up the words, so you only hear I, I, grass! Or even just I, I! You will scoff at the selfishness of it and, in the scoffing, feel old. You will sigh. You will turn, after a long while, to shout What! or I can’t hear you! or Come back! But your voice will catch in your throat and you may swallow a bug.
You will notice as you look back that the grass has grown between you, so tall that you can barely see the top of his head. Is it even his head? Or another? You are wishing. He is overtaken by weeds. You realize that you must be, too. You pinch your eyelids to scan for the dark mass of waves you used to love to touch and touch. Your fingers felt so soft running through it.
When you can’t find him, you cry. You cry and cry and cry and walk. You walk towards where you think the center is, where the grass is cool. You have become so hot, so full of hot. You put your head down and use your arms to hack wildly at the drying stalks, blowing pollen in invisible swirly puffs all around you. You mumble to yourself, How did this grow so fast? I thought someone was supposed to take care of these things. You scratch your arms violently and sneeze. You hear another sneeze just up ahead and think, Aha! We are both allergic! There is hope!
You stop and wait. You feel him coming back. You imagine what you would say if it is not him, but another. You decide you would not say anything, but you know that you would smile. You feel young. You wait and wait and wait and cry. You tilt your chin up, eyes closed, to feel the sun on your skin. A plane flies overhead and casts a shadow on your face. Humidity hangs on your eyelashes.
You open your eyes and realize it is dusk. You are alone and itchy. You scratch and sneeze and eventually lie down, right there in the weeds. You wonder vaguely if you’ll be able to get the dirt stains out of your shorts with that new bleach pen. You sleep. You will sleep and sleep and sleep and sleep.
***
You wake up in your soft city bed and kiss the mass of waves lying quietly on the pillow inches from your face. You smell the Irish Spring on his scalp, so artificially green.
He feels your kiss and turns to hold you – a big spoon, cooling you. The heat is leaving the center of your stomach. The curtains are drawn and you don’t know if the sun is up. Your shoulders are growing goose bumps. You regret dropping your cardigan and pull the comforter up with your feet.
You think, It’s harder to see the weeds when your life is lived on pavement.
writingringlets 