waiting, quiet, room lit by crt glow, i remembered a night months ago when he was just a voice on the phone, letters on a screen. talking over the net, marveling at what we'd created in this space of ones and zeros, he quoted suzanne vega's "language" to me. "amazing," he said then, "how we can be such masters of language that with nothing else, sitting silent in rooms a thousand miles apart, we can be together."
i found the tape, cued it up to the song before, slipped off my clothing and climbed into bed. more waiting. he opened the door, dropping the towel from his waist, body smoothclean, and came to me. holding him, smell of soap and tickle of damp hair on my face. he began to speak, but i recognized the opening chords and said, "shhh." "if language were liquid it would be rushing in. instead here we are in a silence more eloquent than any word could ever be..."
a moment of transcendence, holding him. his tears on my face, my own caught in my throat. his hands on me like water, smoothing my skin under him and i wanted him more than i've ever wanted anything. the week we'd spent together had been rough in places, stepping our ways around mutual disappointments and miscommunications, but in this moment it all coalesced and i *knew* i was where i needed to be, had needed to be for as long as i could remember.
so now he's back in chicago, and i'm still here, empty, remembering the night he looked at me, surprised, and said "you're pretty." or how his only response when i told him he had lousy taste in women was a rude gesture. or how he looked in the morning, sleeping. or falling asleep in his arms as we curled up reading together.
it's back to email and phone and nettalk for the month i have left to live here. it feels more difficult now, harder to maintain and be patient, even as it feels more real.