I couldn’t figure out what to do so I just stood there. But I had to ask, I was starting to like him so I needed to know.
“Sock, sock, shoe, shoe,” he said.
And then paused to ask, “what…do I not seem like the type?”
“Maybe,” I said, though I couldn’t be for sure.
“Fuck,” he said and then waited for me to say something else, except this was right before his date showed up.
“Fuck,” he said.
Another pause.
I laughed. And then I saw him again 2 weeks later.
“Bella wait, you have to meet Sean.”
“Fuck,” I said, and there he was beginning to cut me off.
“I see your fuck and raise you 2 more fucking fucks,” he said. Instead this only confirmed one thing:
I liked him very much.
I mean, the dialogue. It’s sexy, you know. Like the essence of words unsaid or the bare fragance it leaves from mere conversations one never forgets.
And then he asked, “how do you know Reese and Tori?”
“Tori I know from school.”
And even back then, I was obsessed.
But still, it’s something quite attractive about a man and his words. Almost if the stories shared danced in two perfectly paired.
But see, here’s the thing I’ve never been able to understand, both in language and thought: how we’ve trimmed away at such hints of fantasy, a mile-deep, a bit too far. And now we think out what to say.
And for the most part I’m usually not listening. But truthfully, on the other side of that, I probably won’t even remember your name.
Is it Tim? No. It’s Jim. No, it’s Brian. No, wait, don’t tell me. It rhymes with dot. Scott? No. Forgive me.
Until next time.
“A word after a word after a word is power.”—Margaret Atwood
