"No regrets".
Before I went to sleep last night I lay in my bed thinking of you and our chance meeting yesterday. I "talked" to you up there in my bed in a way that I wish I could have when we ran into each other on the street. Upstairs I didn't feel the tug of unseen hands on our coats. In my bed I could dismiss the sands of time that ran much too quickly through that egg timer we shared. In the quiet confines of my room I didn't feel the pressure of a million eyes that folks laid on us as they drove by. In my bed, my head on my pillow, I didn't feel like I was running after a train, didn't have that "say it to me now or forever miss the chance" angst I felt right before we parted.
Yesterday, as we stood there on the trail by the side of the road I felt the weight of all too many months worth of baggage on my shoulders, felt an unnatural constriction of time, the necessity for brevity, the confines of propriety. It felt odd, forced, almost manic to talk to you that clipped, chirpy sort of way. It was all I could do to avoid missing beats. I couldn't help but to stumble on my words. In that Last Supper moment I let all negative things fly away and packed as much soulful inane chatter into five hard and fleeting minutes as I could.
Up in my room, before I fell asleep, it was another matter altogether. The words I had for you there were slow, easy, filled with all the sweet nuances and sloy observations of life that come when you're feeling safe with someone. I've had an awful lot of practice "talking" to you up there, for you have been the one that I look for in heart first and last before going off to sleep or when I wake. I discovered this little truth there in my room that I didn't see or understand when we were there on foot and that is when I saw you I knew that I didn't want to burden you with my feelings. Instead, when I saw you I knew it would be enough just to share grocery aisle stuff, "wow, where did you come from? Out of the blue?" kinda of chatter.
In my bed, in my head, all feelings for you flowed, all bets were off, all normally choked off, restricted or forbidden words, were allowed. I think of all my words to you here, kind or longing or bitter or angry, and know that when I write them they're just to let you know where I stand, to let you know what I'm feeling at the moment. Here it's easy to share with you the general frustration I have knowing that you're out there, that I am over here, and that our coffee pot has been growing cold waiting for us to have our time in the sun once again.
When I saw you coming down the path yesterday I knew we would have just a moment to catch up, the way two people share pregnant pauses in an elevator in between floors, like the minutes you have with a friend, sharing movie star observations, while being stuck behind a harried hausfrau with a cart full of groceries at a checkout. I wanted time to move slowly but knew what we had was being pulled apart by our various realities. Those minutes we shared had to be enough.
But here my words for you can go on forever. My last words to you tonight before I fell asleep? Just this: no regrets. Jane, I have no regrets. I saw that those words registered when I said then to you right before we parted that second time. I saw it in your eyes. I haven't seen emotion like that from you for me in a long time. Like an arrow my words hit their mark. Bullseye.
Yeah, Jane, I have no regrets.
Your WHMB
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