August 20, 2002
A Visitor
Walking to the library this morning, sometime after nine and before eternity, I could not keep from smiling. The weather is beautiful, and I am in love.
Mike leans back on my bed, musing.
"If I lived in a college dorm, I'd start a cult."
"Why not start one anyway?" I prop my chin on my hands, inches from his face. I manage to keep myself from kissing him.
"Well, I couldn't get the same kind of following. I could just go out there, light a candle, and they would come running."
Quite obviously, Mike came to visit me yesterday. In the heat of the afternoon we walked uptown to Skyline, where he tortured me with inadvertent sentiment. He envies me this place, because it is so beautiful and perfect and opportunistic.
I said that it better be for what it's costing me.
"I know." He says suddenly. "We'll share a dorm up here during the week, and then my house on the weekend when we go to work."
He grins, and I do so only because he has.
"Don't fuck with me." I reply, casting my eyes downward and playing idly with the straw in my Dr. Pepper.
A beat.
"So, how long before you find a college guy?"
"I already have one."
I cannot keep from sighing, and wish this entry could have more coherence. So much to say, and yet now that I am finally before a computer I find that I do not have the words to say it. I can only use his, branded deeply into the hide of my mind almost as he says them, stored for this diary, stored for myself, stored for a future whose face I cannot see.
We were walking in the moonlight on our way to the little convenience store so I could buy myself coffee and juice. He stops me, his arms wrapping around my waist.
"Look."
And there, framed between the knarled branches of the trees on the green in front of my dorm, is the moon. The clouds scroll past, it made indigo and silver by its glow. It's beautiful, like a picture, like a cartoon.
Mike didn't realize that it wasn't the most beautiful thing that evening. He was.
Later I could not help but giggle when the moon went behind the clouds, resembling something out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I anticipated God to come popping out at any moment. We quoted the movie all the way through Cook Field.
He smiles at me like we're keeping secrets. I'd just like to know what they are.
Today I have one class, and I brought the ruby notebook emblazoned with a picture of Ziggy Stardust-esque David Bowie and Pablo Neruda's The Stolen Branch. I will take notes, maybe. Afterwards I will have lunch with Jody, and then go uptown to buy my books.
I might see him tonight.
I might not.
Will he miss me enough, these coming months?
The tarot spoke of deception last night. Deception, indecision, and lovers. Who is decieving who? Is he decieving me, or am I decieving myself?
I can't see him lying to me.
I'm such a stupid girl.
"Steve thinks I'm crazy for dating you."
"Why?" I ask, both wanting and not wanting to hear the answer.
"Because you're in school. His girlfriend was in college. It sucks."
"It does suck."
"I was just lying in bed the other night, and I thought, 'I want to cuddle up to her,' but you weren't there."
I sigh.
"Do you think I am worth it?"
"Do you think you're worth it?"
"That's not for me to decide."
There is a small silence, and I press my ear against his chest and relish his heartbeat.
"True."
Don't I know it.
astera at 8:44 a.m.