substitutes

substitutes

I can’t help but sometimes feel like the substitute, the bottle of saccharin when what she wants is sugar, and I catch a reflection of myself in her eyes when she holds something she can’t have. It’s a look not to be missed, and afterwards I can tell myself that the compliments are a worthy substitute for validation. She asked me once if I was still sleeping, me walking on the way back from the bathroom at 5 in the morning, and I joked, “Yes. Look at me. Sleeping and walking at the same time. Ambisomnolent. Even now, the consummate multitasker,” but by then she was fast a-dreaming, likely in the arms of someone she can’t have, missing out on my subtle humor, difficult to grasp in that final hour of pitch-black morning. Such ripe grounds for those tip-of-your-tongue word combinations that have fueled entire nightstand notebook industries.

She’s sleeping, and I can move close to her and try to remember if this is how she smelled years ago, but really, so many senses are wasted on first meetings and introductions. Occasionally, we’ll make contact and it’s like falling from terrific heights along the walls of a seaside canyon, knowing you have wings, but not prepared to open them until the last moment, and if that moment doesn’t come until you’re hopelessly close to crashing into the surf, then so what. Fuck it.

I had a teacher once try to tell the class how to write this. She said, "Never mention the thing. Allude to it. See it in front of you. Hear its whisper in your thoughts. Feel its warmth along the hidden curves of your neck. But ignore it on the page." The next week, all the students wrote stories about their first experiences smoking pot. The teacher rolled her eyes. But she never said, "YOU KNUCKLEHEADS AREN’T LISTENING." Because, well, that would have been mentioning the thing.

Every now and then I dream that I’m writing in that notebook next to my pillow, and it’s good enough and well-enough alone, most likely. And she’ll ask, "Who’s that?", and I’ll answer, "I didn’t say anything," and she’ll move ever so slightly away, towards the canyon’s edge, ready to leave her wings quivered, but reply, "Oh," knowing full well, but not mentioning the thing. And I can’t tell if this thing is forgiveness, enabling or some combination thereof as of yet undiscovered by social scientists. And in the morning I forget to write down those thoughts I imagined so enlightening, and only vaguely recall an image of me diving over the edge after her, knowing that I’ll watch her disappear beneath the waves before I’m even close. Fuck it.