Her

Been staying in the house owned by New Her’s parents and mine. Not my mom, of course. My step-mom and my dad. It’s a large house; it seems to hold a large family; large emotions. It sleeps at the creases of the road off of Highway 1, the one I told her to merge onto after an hour on Highway 101. Her car goes fast. She’s coming to get me; pick me up. I can’t stop thinking about her. My love. Been on and off of the phone with her. It goes from my pocket to my ear at a sickening pace. I can’t get rid of her. I’m newly dried, like when you just got out of the shower and put on fresh clothes. I don’t know if it was the shower that got me wet actually. A newly dried feeling. We are in the country, 30 maybe 40 minutes from the city. A snowy place with no snow. I’m on the phone with her again. My step-mom walks down the stairs and asks me about the Old Her. I cringe; can’t believe she’s asking me about it. Old business; always in my business. Annoying. Knew her then, New Her now. Better than the last. Annoyed, I step outside. New Her’s brothers start walking with me then. To wait for her? Don’t know one of them, but something in him is familiar. He picks up a hose off the ground and lightly sprays me with it. I’m mad. I didn’t want to get my hair wet. I am newly dried. Now moist. We make our way down half a block on the sidewalk lining the road, lining the trees, lining the higway. A car. We are going to wash it. Some women (pretty girly) athletes sit in the car ready to get out. They all open their doors simultaneously, and now they are male athletes. Her New. Can’t get her out of my mind, Every second is thinking about her, We sit and wait with the athletes and new her makes her way to me.

The beach is whispering to me, on the beach. Wind. Too many people I know. It tells me it’s uncomfortable. Parallels my inner emotions as I watch Old Her walk up the hill toward me. I’m on a ledge. My step-mom is standing next to me. Why. Old Her lent me her towel in the hallway of the futuristic beach house. It looks like a tanning salon. I was cold and wet. Now she walks to me. Young kids around Bro’s age jump off of the top of a 30-foot piece of plastic floating in the water. It is intricate. Looks as if it has been melted in a thousand and one different ways, now leaving someone’s masterpiece, their treasure. They walk on it like garbage. It bobs. Step-mom is always near me. Old Her is at me now. She bats her eyes. I wrinkle my face. She tries to touch me. That’s what she needs. Hasn’t been touched like I have. She’s depressed and sad. She needs me. She wants me. But I don’t need her. I don’t want her. I turn my back to

New Her.

I’m with her now but I wonder what could have been Nothing.

We all sit around in New Her’s new living room. Her dad, her mom, her best guy friend (my version of Cole). There is no T.V. on. No point of focus, no area to grab our interest. Just each other. Almost like it always should be. Just people being people, no electronics, no static, just breath and love. I look into each of their eyes. I see her in them. The squint in her mother’s eye; the glossyness in her father’s eye; the happiness in her best friend’s eye. They reflect her. Then the house shakes. I feel her coming, like those nights. We all just sit there, still, as the ceiling light shakes and the walls start to crack. It is a ritual to wait for her like this. Her mother smiles at me and does the funny eye thing that she always does. My body laughs. Then it comes. The milk begins to leak through the open cracks, slowly, thick and white, staining the walls and the rug. Then it gushes through an opening in the corner of the room and we are suddenly waist deep in it. I feel her around me.

I look up and the sky explodes with color. Blues mesh with greens that overturn with the force of a violet rush. The clouds add an effect. Have you ever watched a sky explode? The fireworks blind me with vivid blank. This was a time with Old Her. I held her as she trembled. Against the water we smiled and watched the sky in wonder. The sky was more beautiful than her. Somewhere searching for New Her in those clouds. I squinted and saw her face outline. She was there with me, but I had another body with me. Old Her’s warmth made me sick. I couldn’t be with her. But I held on. For seven more months. Constantly searching for the New Her. I had to get rid of old. And move on.

There is a pool by my house where I use to write. When the days were longer and life and love was innocent. I used to go sit in those plastic lean-back chairs with a pencil and a journal in my hand and write everything that was on my mind. I haven’t gone there in 6 years but today is different. I walk along the white that holds the cars into their parking spaces through the gate and a wave comes over me. This is my place. I go to the second plastic chair from the corner –the one I always use to sit in—and lay down. What is it about New Her? And everything goes away, your sweet lips hover over mine and the pain of everything vanishes, Soft, Thick, Love. They hold onto me and make promises, Nothing can break when you kiss me, Fulfillment reaches deep into my soul caressing the strings of my heart             I beat faster, They fit so perfectly Your lips in mine, They draw away what’s on my mind and hold me where they belong, Fire explodes within and presses into you, We work together to create the magic.

Well that’s a start. Some poem.

Old Her called me. She told me all the disgusting things she has been doing without me. Good thing she is out of my life, is all I can think. She is disgusting just like her things. It is time for her to go. She must leave me forever. Some promises broken but that’s just the way it is. I am no longer heartbroken. She says she is. Goodbye. For now, at least. Maybe in another lifetime we can be friends.

I imagined we drove through the forest together. Her car going fast, the windows rolled down, her hair flying. My heart flying. Curves upon twirls of pavement balance and hug her car taking us to noplace. We just went. Anywhere, we said. Why do we think so much alike? I kiss her everytime we turn a corner. She slows down so it’s a chance for me to sneak one in. After a while we park at the side of a large field with a little lake tucked nearby. We stop and just look into each other’s eyes. She is beautiful. We both smile. Then we get out of the car and walk down the trail. The rocks and pebbles crunch under our feet. Maybe we will get a tan today. I say we so much. The sun beams down and I breathe in the coolness of the trees and her scent. Then we run through the field like in those movies about love. And I realize how in love with her I am. It’s unreal. Maybe I didn’t imagine that.

Just a few thoughts. I don’t fall in love easily. New Her finds it hard to accept that I would be in love with her. But it’s true. I spend every moment thinking about her and spend my stories talking about her. She thinks I fall in love easily but I’ve never felt like this before. First time I saw her our eyes locked, and I knew she would be mine. Never believed in love at first sight until she came along, until her energy hit mine.

Couldn’t be by her that one night. Didn’t want her teammates to know about us, but it was obvious. We were drunk and all over each other. Kept flirting with our eyes. Kept taking more shots. And then water spilled everywhere. I don’t know from where, it just came through and got everyone a little moist. So we made our way to her room. Couldn’t let her teammates know. Slid through her open door. Held her like everything she is. Held her like she was the world. Held her like she was the love of my life. Held her like she was part of me.

I am crazy over someone I haven’t known very long, it’s true. But all I can think is energy. Her energy. I no longer think of Old Her. Is there such a thing? I no longer think of New Her; I think of New Her as simply Her. Because that is what she is, no questions. Just infinity. Will make those many memories like I did with the one from the past. Will create that new life and love her more than anything I have ever loved. No one will get in the way. The waves will still flow. The seasons will still change. Th grass will still grow. The skies will stay vibrant with their fireworks but I no longer must search. That face sits next to me now.

She is turned around. All you see is her hair. Her dark. She looks off into the distance which soon comes closer and no longer seems to stretch out as it always has. She looks at me. In the ear, my eye. God, she is beautiful. This is for real. My milk, my water. My soul. She holds on and I hold on tighter. Drifting sand catches in my eye while I move closer to her. Closer to her. Where I belong. Sometimes it’s gonna rain. But she is an eternal umbrella shining above me. Holding the water.