I didnt know what to call it at first.
But I felt it.
Before the words come to you.
Aaron Anderson
Before you have a name for it.
Later on you asked me what the fuck was going on, and I answered honestly.
I said I didnt know.
I told you you had no idea how many times Id asked myself the very same question.
You said it was an irresistible pull, like a magnet.
And maybe it was for you.
But for me it was entirely awanting.One I had never been more sure of.
A wanting I resisted and resisted and resisted.
Sometimes there are things you just know.
Like a truth you carry inside of you no matter how hard you try and deny it.
Even if there is no logical way to prove it.
Even if all signs point to the contrary.
Not love itself, just the falling the tipping point, the cusp.
The same way you cant call something that is dying, dead.
Just like the moment right before an orgasm isnt the climax, but also isnt any less fucking intense.
You called it a massive crush or something.
Or when I saw how you looked at me in the reflection of my sliding glass door.
I certainly would not call that lust.
You said it was passing, but that I still made your heart pound in your chest.
What did the pounding say?
That it was passing?
I think you misread the symptoms.
You were always misreading.
Of course it was about love.
It was always about love.
But all I said was,It has to start somewhere.
You cant just know right away.
Sometimes you were very good at reading.
Like the time you looked at my face and saw the concern written all over it.
You teased me for it afterwards relentlessly.
Or when you woke up in my lap and looked up at me and thought I was scared.
It was never you that I was afraid of.
Or how I felt.
I was afraid of who it would hurt.
You most of all I think.
I never asked for what I wanted outright.
Partly because I didnt think I deserved it.
Mostly because I had an acute understanding of what it would entail.
You knew I had just lived through something similar.
You knew it was fresh.
Who would want a rebound this complicated?
Id never seen two people make more excuses to touch each other.
That need to be close in any way possible.
I told you I was attracted to you intellectually, physically, emotionally in response.
Looking back, I wonder if you were making a safety net for yourself out of those assumptions.
Like you were afraid of getting hurt.
Like if you decided it didnt mean anything to me, you wouldnt have to make a choice.
It took time for me to not hate myself for wanting it anyway.
To read the grey between the black and white of it all.
But while intentions can be grey, decisions can only be one or the other.
And I understood yours.
Trying to fight their way out from behind your closed teeth.
I didnt know what to call it back then.
When I felt it.
Sometimes you feel something before you’re able to identify what it is.
Before the words come to you.
These are the words that came.
