Words

Part 1: Love

He said it.  He said it explosively, he said it pleadingly, he drew it out slowly and then threw a dozen of them, quickly, one after the other.  He opened the floodgates of it, as if he were drowning in it by himself, he let it sweep out and over me, saying it again and again.

Part 2: Friendship

I live in a house with two of my friends.  We were friends before we were housemates.  And sometimes, I find myself telling a story and saying, housemate, and then thinking, should I have said, friend?  Have I just devalued their relationship to me?  Sometimes, it matters in the context of the story, but sometimes it really doesn't.

I dunno.  It's not a big deal, but it snags in my head sometimes.

Part 3: Friendship (again)

I searched for words.  What do I feel for him?  I am no longer smitten.  I don't have romance-feelings.  But I am not without feeling.  So I say, friend.  You feel like a friend.  Because it's the closest analogy I have.  Somewhere between I want you to be my Person, and I want you out of my life.

But now I have to say, I can't be your friend.  And he is bewildered, because I just said that I was.  And I don't know how to answer.  Explain.

Please.  Just don't.

Don't ask.  I can't answer you.  I don't have the words.


Part 4: Someone Else's

I think you should read something else for a while.  You should read this.  Because someone I don't actually know very well but was in a writing class with, who I admire enough to cling to that connection—I was in a class with her once!—moved to Dallas, and instead of rolling her eyes like every jaded non-Texan I know, including myself, she decided to love it. 

And then, because I thought, it's a shame you can't see her other work on the blog, because there are so many amazing things to see and love, I googled her and found them.

She says: Tell me, as if I didn't know, about Love lost.

Here.

Part 5: Counting

In the course of two hours, I said (texted) "I need time" three times, and "I need space" twice.  I also said (texted) the word "can't" eight times, "friend" six times, and "friendship" once.  Sometimes I said (texted) "need," and sometimes I said (texted) "NEED," but together there were five of them.

Last night he said that he didn't want to just be another number.  Another first message in my project.  I didn't tell him that he already is a number, he always has been.  First he was his message number, and then a word count.  It wasn't really 504, even though I said it was, but it was over 500 and I couldn't remember the exact count.  504.  I was smitten with that number before we even met.