I Don’t Know What ‘We’ Are, But I’m Happy It’s Something

I know we just met. And that you don’t know anything about me, really. And I don’t know anything about you, either. But for now, I can say very honestly that I don’t care about any of that stuff. It’s trivial.

Like your age.
Where you’ve been.
Where you’re going.
What scares you.
Your dreams.

I just want us to stay in this moment. So, stay. Will you?

It’s everything I used to consume myself with, wanting to know everything about a person—every little part, every dark side, every secret they’ve never told. But I don’t want to know. Because it does not matter. It’s not going to change what this is.

It’s not going to make me want you any more or less. I just want you now. And that’s what matters. The way your eyes speak in silence under this moon. The beautiful tension between us that’s pulsing. Your skin. And the way I can’t figure out the smell of you—whether it’s smoke or sex, cedar or clover.

I just want it on me—that’s all I really know.

I can hear the angry ocean. It’s swallowing dreams tonight. And it’s cold for late-summer. But it is nighttime. Well after midnight. And it’s only you, and it’s only me, standing there, surprising each other by whatever this is. Who are you? Don’t answer that. Don’t even move. At least for a little while. Or just until the poetry of it decides it wants to become something else for us tonight.

I feel nervous in a way unfamiliar to me. Like the moment is about to end and all we can do is be quiet and sadly watch it go. I never knew it would ache so badly, to be so desperate to be had. So will you? Have me? Before it’s over and we are gone and we never see each other ever again after this late-summer cold?

You never asked me what makes me happy. What that little tick of sadness is that even laughs can’t cover.

What’s my favorite?
Am I from here?
If disappointment was a color, what color would it be?
What’s my heart saying?
What do I want?

But you wouldn’t have to ask that—what I want. All I want is this. The way you’re consuming me. The way you don’t know me at all but you still want me. You are a fever. This whole moment is.

And there’s something about your hands. I watch them as though someone told me I had to and couldn’t look anywhere else. They go from your jean pockets, to my waist, to holding my face between them. There’s a thirst in your eyes. I know what it means. And then, you. Kissing me like I’ve never been kissed. All silent and raw. Not polite. Not even sorry. And those bear hands of yours, as though traveling and writing a song all over my story. What a damned world. But we’re lucky we don’t even realize it. Aren’t we? Lucky?

I still don’t know who you are, really. And you don’t know who I am, either. But let’s not. I just want it to be like this, as it is. Not ruined or strange. Just so unknowingly pure and perfect. As it is. With that mad ocean, and that wary moon, and the two of us wanting each other so badly, like we’ve never known what it meant to want anything before.

Some nights were born for hearts, though. Surely this night was.

Meeting you. Seeing you, and wanting. To taste. My world had been someone else’s, probably longer than I’ll ever say. But you’re the one who broke it. The one I might not know long enough to break me like that again. (Cedar. You smell like cedar.)

So will you, stay? Just a little bit longer? Stay on me, kissing me? I don’t even know who I am anymore. I completely forget. I’m just happy I’m not his. I’m just happy I’m here, as honest and unknowing as it is, with my whole world interrupted, by you and only you.

Whoever you are…