Down Bad on Halloween

….And three years pass, and she comes back, and this is what she says. THIS.

She says I was just walking down the street, fast, and my blonde curly ponytail was swinging in the fall leaves falling from the trees, and it was that golden-y late autumn sunset light–that light that almost feels HEAVY somehow, and it was all poetic, or something. Just me with Mama’s birthday card in one hand, heavy in my palm, needing postage. Heading to the PostNet on Laurel Street, walking under that one gorgeous oak tree and just minding my own business and then BAM! I look up and there he is, omg there he fucking is, and he’s leaning out of his window [leaning out the side of his best friend’s ride] and he’s STOPPED in the middle of busy 1st Avenue in his big silver GMC and he’s SAYING HI TO ME, he’s calling out and SAYING HI. And then I wave, all frantically, almost nerdily, and that feeling of a crush, that huge sparkling painful unrequited feeling of a A HIGH SCHOOL CRUSH just bubbles up from inside and you think OMG he almost caused a traffic accident just to say HI to me. And then the puppy is pulling, and you’re on your way, and get to PostNet and you buy stamps.

And then the next night. It’s Halloween, and you’re wearing your classic bumble bee costume with the yellow stinger on the butt and you’re walking the puppy again. And he sees you from NEAR his house, like he could have just gone inside, down the gate and INSIDE, but he kept walking TOWARDS you and his big tall head is just peeking over the parked cars and he can SEE you, but this makes sense because he’s 6 foot 5 inches tall. And you just take a deep internal breath and think I can do this, I can be charming. So then I, can I just switch back to writing in the first person please now, please (oh God, I’m so bad at this, I’m so RUSTY-please forgive), **I** do a little spin to show him my bumble bee butt stinger and he says “haha nice” and then I am just chatting and he’s doing his classic Neighborhood Crush Guy thing of staring directly into my eyes, into my SOUL, and he’s smiling the whole time and inside while I’m just flipping my hair and giving my cutest dimpled full teeth smile back to his FACE and trying to make cute conversation, inside I’m LIQUIFYING, I’m hot molten lava inside and it’s just melting my internal organs inside me into a weird twisted metal sculpture. We part ways, and he says “We should do farmer’s market again with [Name Redacted] soon”, and I say yes, yes please, let’s not let 100 years go by before we see each other again.

And when he hugs me, he’s so tall that I just get his torso and I just tuck in, like a little nook, I squeeze him around his ribs as tight as I can without him feeling my desperation, my longing, my raw vulnerable CRUSH-NESS, crushing him, exposing myself. Showing my GUTS, my bloody molten guts right there on the street we share. Where we both LIVE.

This is what has been happening to me. THIS. This is what I choose to come here with and vomit onto this digital page. THIS. NONESENSE. AFTER THREE YEARS.

I have missed you [the community] all of you so much. I love you. Who’s here still!??!? ::screech::

Roll call? Goodnight. I was always so bad with endings/goodbyes. BYE. GOODBYE.