What Love Isn’t

she didn’t look at me with hesitation. the way we do to strangers until we remember to smile or offer some warm gesture as to keep them from insecurity. her smiles & nods felt familiar. she desired to call me friendly nicknames from day one. we worked alongside each other making drinks & serving anxious customers addicted to caffeine, & my nervousness seemed to sink into oblivion. she never had a single glimpse of uncertainty from the second I met her, & that was unnerving.

wasn’t she supposed to act like we were strangers, since we were?

but she was so ultimately attractive. in the tan, thick bodied natural way that is rare. & she was standoffish in the way that was mysterious, not repelling.

& I spoke all the ways my headspace seemed cramped & she didn’t think that was overwhelming, even though we’d simply met a month ago.

her open mind was rare. astounding but close mindedness was fire & I was oil. dangerous & bitter. I couldn’t stand a closed mind in my vicinity.

maybe we just related there. we weren’t supposed to be strangers, I felt it. though of obviousness, from a past life or such, she came into my reality. that’s why the urge to put my hands on places of her seemed chaotic with how quick it arrived. I didn’t want to say that. no admitting.

she’d think I was a sex fiend maybe & then the hestitation would arrive.

I figured meeting at work, especially such a simple place such as Starbucks, held chances. I always wondered about people who met their significant other at places such as bars, where people go to get drunk & ninety percent of the time aren’t even their true selves. hormonal & over~confident, is how I describe people at bars. just sipping to numb something.

no judgment, just an observation. alcohol has its perks, but cons more frequently. so making coffees & wiping down tables seemed safe. I would make drinks & hope I’d look up to see her staring at me. I caught her once or twice. I stared more than once or twice, though. & maybe she did too. who truly would know?

& the undressing came. my hands & whole body met hers in more ways that I imagined possible. less physical more spiritual than I’d expected.

but sex was the least of what I wanted of her. I simple desired to be significant to her, to have her know the lack of hesitation had a purpose & to reciprocate the infatuation stirring up in me every day.

I’d check the schedule to take extra shifts she was on. I’d decline offers of rides home so I could say “yes I do today” when she’d ask me if I needed her to take me home, & she asked every day she was available.

call it obsessive, but I call it a following of a desire & a knowing.

it took almost a year of rebuilding myself for her to notice where my intentions with her lied. as well as the fact, growing up in a homophobic family led her to know homophobia within herself, & she taught her heart & lust to deny every time her gaze was latched upon something other than a man. I admit i judged this heavily in the beginning.

the hesitation came up in my eyes first that way.

but the undressing was mixed with LA sun, her going into dispensaries for me, me becoming friendly with her family who came around the amount they needed to, & the details of each other’s existence blending & blending. we slept together. I had my psychotic breakdowns in front of her. we reached all those mile marks that people celebrate in a relationship. yet they didn’t feel like achievements. I lived them as inevitable events.

we made art.

much hesitation arrived. see I knew our relationship as crucial to soul ~ development, & that meant duality. a steady balance of good & of negative. that meant embracing it all & not chasing perfection or fairytales.

from both ends, the hestiation grew more frequent in both our eyes & deeper in our wonders about each other & what it meant to us personally to be “in love.” we’d seen it all on television. we’d seen our own past relationships & knew how it went.

we weren’t lovers after a moment, after the initial high wore off & a still peace settled in. we were life partners. the type of person you intertwine with to roll through every occasion of daily life with, not just the “fun” seconds, or attractive times, but everything in between, & the ways we sat through nothing.

I understand that was love. to know hesitation & still charge forward, ignoring it. putting my ego to rest even through every word it spit about “could’ve been” “it will end eventually, don’t waste too much.” I knew love was full surrender of the experience & not of making sure another person gives me stimulation & is a constant entertainer.

I had to hesitate, to understand the roots of doubt.

she didn’t hesitate at first, so we could start. the start was mandatory.