this may or may not be about someone you've never met

black book

in love and useless

I'm in love. This time it's really real; and I know it's different because I'm scared of jokes about babies and marriage because I might actually want them this time.  This boy of mine, this changing man, he's a big and burly, real sweet, gap-toothed doofus. I'm watching him smoking, carrying the trash out to the dumpster in the alley behind "our" house. He's barefoot, and I can feel his big, squishy, caveman feet treading across the wet pavement and up "our" fire escape. I snap his photo because I know I'll want to look at it when I'm home in a week, alone in my cold bed.

My friends all seem to know when we're messaging and ask me how it's going and I always tell them to fuck off; but we all know my shit-eating grin doesn't camouflage me well.  Oh how I can't think or focus on a damn thing long enough before he comes wandering back in. He gets more air play than commercials, this dummy. 

It's hard to be happy and in love when your best friend's "loving" relationships turn out to not be so loving after all.  And I feel pity when I hear the phrase "oh, you're so lucky to be in love." when, really, luck hasn't got shit to do with it at all; but I don't have the heart to crush theirs by spilling the beans that they've gone all-in on a hoax. 

He cooks. He cleans. He fucks me in three languages. He rubs my belly and knows when I'm sad before I do. He laughs when I line our butts up and fart into his. Oh, I love his laugh. It's full and fat with this pure as christmas joy. He's a smart fucking bastard, with the wit to match, and still humble and charming and kind. He says I'm special, and I think he is too. Within the first hour of meeting him he painted his uncircumcised willy as Steve Jobs in a turtleneck, confessed that he's never been able to cum from a blow job, and used MY Groucho Marx line ["I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."] that I've been using to fend off evil doers and unwanted suitors and the like for years and years now - all while buying me a whiskey. And, so, all that set off a curiosity and competition in me and now I had to have him. Well, we waited a whole day before we walked my monster and his broken bike home to fuck savagely in the shower. And, so, I still touch myself to the splashing sweat and water and how hard I came all over his donkey kong.

He has an unpronounceable last name. He likes christmas and booze and quiet mornings and good meals and nice nothings and notes and cuddling with me. He watches things like blacksmithing competition videos and learns something. I like watching him when he sings and plays guitar while taking a dump. He's the only man-boy-person I've ever been able to fall asleep on and stay asleep on. The first night he slept over without my monster, I laid between his legs, while he told me stories; and as the joke goes when one is a bore, I began to snore. When he looked down to hit the punchline, the joke doubled, as I really had fallen asleep. He said he fell for me a whole lot right then (in that little room). 

Since then, I've cancelled trips and sat on trains and planes and had my bags torn apart and papers inspected, and have lost books and time, all so I can be back in his big dumb warm arms and feel his stupid belly rub against mine and touch his shoulders and kiss the back of his neck and try to wrestle him even though we both know he's much stronger than I am and can pin me down no problem. Since then, we've said I like you and I love you and I'm in love with you and popped pimples and planned holiday presents. Since then, I've left him my old panties to tear a hole and wiggle on through. We've gone on hack dates, one that ended at an end of the earth bar, called BAR. We've put cigarettes out on each other and he's pissed on my chest and belly and me on his back and face. He's recorded me sea chanties and convinced me to sing in public. I've helped him vomit and him me. We've shaved each other, poorly, and day dreamed about lunch and eloping. Once, when we were fucking he told me to say something inappropriate, so I said "I love you!" And after we both came, he licked me up until his tongue went numb.  He introduces me as "his old bitch." But everyone knows I need no introduction - really only because we're repulsively in love and attached at the hip and hand and lips and weird knee caps and pumping muscles and nails and eyebrows and- need I say more? 

I met him in a basement and he gave me a beer and I him a light in the alley out back and now I'm totally fucking smitten, head over heels in love with this beast of a babe and so rendered entirely useless. 

Micaela Silberstein