Many Names

The nicknames are countless. He has one for when my appetite is out of control: Bertha (in Spanish). He has one when I get feisty and my comebacks are great, even and especially when they fall on a Monday: Idis. He has one when I share tidbits of wisdom: Grasshopper. But when he calls me Erika… he says it when he knows I’m holding back myself from him, after he says goodbye, and when he sighs after laughing at something I said or did, “Oh Erika.”Or sometimes when his mind wanders to when he left his touch all over me. My favorite is when I call him early in the morning (cause he’s dead asleep in the middle of the night), his voice is raspy, “Hi Erika.” He’s open to me. He’s open to me at 7am in the morning, when I can’t go back to sleep. It gives me hope to when he’ll call me “babe.”

What do they call that? BFFs?

“Do you want to get pie?” he asked. Shrugged my shoulders. I’m working on patience. We walked out of Olive Garden. In all honesty, I wanted pie there and then, pumpkin cheesecake. I’m working on patience, though. He grabbed me around my waist, shifted my hips to the left of him. He tends to walk on the outside of the sidewalk.

“Literally, I consider you one of my best friends, what do they call that? BFFs?” he asked earlier. I thought about it as we walked, I slowed down my pace. He noticed, asked me if I was getting tired and why I insisted on wearing heels. I wore heels that night, and on Wednesday when we went grocery shopping. I hardly ever wear heels.

Yes, I was getting tired, I was getting tired of wondering what we were, of not knowing myself what I wanted, of pretending to not want to know. We’d kiss good-bye and hello. Nothing in between, beginning and end, other than me.

And now you call me a “BFF.” The in between of the Madonna and the whore. The one that you can be with… later. The one who you can trust, “say everything to,” but whom you don’t trust yourself around. What if it worked out, if it didn’t? If I got distant, if you got distant? So you stay comfortable, and you keep me safe in the inside of the sidewalk.

He’d caught up to my silence. “How do you feel right now? I mean, you’ve never told me what you wanted…”

I hadn’t. I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought ‘what if,’ the time he slept over, woke up to find him inflate the airmatress that kept deflating every hour. I thought ‘what if,’ when he first kissed me good-bye.

I didn’t think beyond ‘what if’ before. My heart wouldn’t let my mind wander further. Giving as a friend before giving as a lover was out of character for me. But with him it feels natural to do so. I want to get to know him; I want him to get to know me, naturally, gradually. Toes in first. Without pressure of being less or more. If he is to save me from the one before, I want him to do it without acknowledgement or intention. I don’t want to get hurt by my own expectations and lack of emotional limitations.  And if we do have any, which we of course do, I want both expectations and intentions to collide without human effort or pressure.

Lately, I’ve been thinking ‘what if,’ every time he walks down to the PATH train.

“If that guy in Atlanta, that you’re talking to, would come here and ask you to be with him, right now, what would you say? You’d say yes?” he asked.

I hesitated.  I hesitated to sigh, not to say yes. If he knew that “that guy from Atlanta” has pulled my heart back farther than the distance between him and I.  If he knew that “that guy from Atlanta” and I have outlined the words of love, but we’ve grown farther from filling in the lines. And that he also considers me a “BFF.” If he knew that “that guy from Atlanta” isn’t even who he should be worried about, it should be me. It should the him that may go with me.

“It’s good to be scared. It means you have something to lose. Something worth fearing to lose.”

But even with saying that, I leave words unspoken. I’m working on patience. I’ll appreciate the in-between phase. Only unseal my lips to kiss hello and good-bye.

Did you call the doctors?

Her: Did you call the doctors?
Me: No…
Her: Why not? I’m hanging up. You’re going to call. Then you’re going to call me back.

Her: So?
Me: They said they’ll go over the results on the 30th. But if it was anything bad they would have already called.

Her: That’s good. Erika, that’s good! You should go sky diving. And maybe you can stop being scared and thinking in your head that somethings wrong with you.
Me: But…
Her: No, nothing is wrong with you.

Maybe I want something to be wrong with me.  To validate my foolishness. Gives me a reason to not let go. To stay faithful to everyone but me. Wasn’t dependent on anyone when I was younger. Now I’ve even grown fond of the mouse downstairs. Philip. Maybe I want to give him a reason to stay with me cause without it he may not be here.

Philip got caught. I don’t have a tumor. No more excuses, eh?

May I’ve grown too dependent to Love’s fairy dust.