magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

i wish i knew what to write to sum up sonali's visit. i returned today after she had left to find a short note, two marks on a napkin: i love. an incomplete thought. or, a complete thought that leaves you expecting more.

---

[i wrote most of this in the few days after she left for new haven. there are gaps. things are edited, revised, or paraphrased from memory. there's another couple of paragraphs at the end that i'm leaving out for the moment. they might eventually find their way into a poem, comic strip, story, play, or such.]

last night she told me that it had been a perfect day, the sort of day that you look back at when things aren't going well and feel better. and i wished that i could just leave it at that, but of course i couldn't.

...

"yesterday when i introduced you to jen, all i was thinking was that you were luminous and she was just something shiny that had caught me attention for a while."

and she looked at me with that yr much too fucking sweet for yr own good look. "i want to be mad at you for saying things like that, but how can i?"

...

"but why me? i'm cute, or pretty, or whatever, but i'm not the most beautiful girl in the world. and i'm smart, but i'm not the smartest girl in the world. i really just see myself a a big goofball."

"which is an endearing quality. and i probably wouldn't even be interested in the smartest, prettiest girl in the world anyway."

"maybe i'm giving off some sort of pheromones that yr particularly susceptible to."

...

and i should have left it at that, but my mind was in a total loop, i was pacing back and forth, and had to say it all out loud. (i went through this the last time i saw her too. i had forgotten that. but i hadn't said anything that time, beyond the poem.)

i did say it, eventually, and it was too much. "i don't know if this is a desire for emotional attachment, or sexual attraction," she said, "but i can't give you either of those things." it wasn't either of those exactly. maybe a little of both, in a way.

the conversation was emotionally draining for both of us. and there was really no possible satisfactory resolution. "i just felt like i needed to say was i was feeling."

"no you didn't. i can see it in yr eyes every time you look at me." and: "i feel like i'm watching our friendship disintegrating."

"stop." i said. and emotionally i took a step back from it all, and tried to be as rational as possible. "lets look at it all like this: i'm just being silly. because of pheromones, or because i only see you once a year, or whatever. yr leaving tomorrow, and i'm going to continue to be caught up in this for a couple of days, but i'll get over it. so no more talk about disintegrating friendships. okay?"

and we went to sleep, and in the morning we got up and said our goodbyes. likely for another year.