the last resort

she couldn’t resist the smile that stole across her face.

she turned away suddenly to keep me from noticing, but she couldn’t go very far.

her hands were twined amongst mine, and the wind kicked and pulled her hair across her face.

briefly obscuring that smile.

she looked back towards me, more composed, more serious.

but i loved the way she couldn’t keep her rosey cheeks from dancing at the corners.

barely beneath the surface was that spring loaded smile, and she was having the darndest time trying to push it back inside its box.

i pulled her in for another kiss, and the smile broke to the surface again.

it made my heart skip – a million little high fives resounding in one loud clap inside my head.

at that moment it crossed my mind that the key to making this ‘work’ would be to keep her smiling like that.

forever.

and then i realized that it was impossible.

****

for all my tough bluff – strong words and angry rhetoric, i am secretly the worst kind of closet romantic.

i am a believer.

i eat that shit up with a spoon, a knife, and a bulldozer.

and it doesn’t take much for someone to figure this out – im actually quite open about it.

ill admit this to the first person, the last person, and anyone in between - but i doubt that many people realize how far the rabbit hole really goes.

if alice tumbled down far enough, the rabbit hole would drop straight into my heart.

and that’s why i refuse to settle for anything but crescendo’s and a thousand violins and the 1812 overture and fireworks on the fourth of july.

i want a nuclear implosion – a soundless explosion that i hear not in my head but feel in the tips of my toes.

i want it all.

and i want it on the first.

first look.

first touch.

first kiss.

our first.

the first.

of many.

****

and she wasn’t any of these things.

but she was very cute.

cuter than i expected, and certainly cuter than i deserved.

she was four feet and eleven inches tall, and she stood four feet and eleven inches tall.

she wore flats on our first date, and i almost fell in love with her for it.

her hair was flippy, just like i liked it.

she looked nothing like her pictures – which was a relief because i couldn’t decide if i liked her in her pictures.

even now as i draw upon a mental image of her, i am met with a confusing montage of memories of our time together mixed with memories of her in pictures that ive seen. sometimes i think im making my memory of her into something else – someone that isn’t her at all.

someone that i like. someone that i would like more.

but other times i think i remember her as i saw her.

and i hope that this is true sense of what she looks like.

not necessarily who she is, but what she looks like.

****

we were seated.

we sat for an hour emptily staring at our menus.

we didn’t order.

we spoke instead.

i don’t remember the words that we uttered.

they just tumbled as new words have a tendency to do.

skipping like rocks across a still pond – not really making a dent in anything, but causing little ripples within our consciousness before eventually sinking to the bottom.

it’s a first date – nothing of substance is actually discussed.

and yet so much is weighed, so much information is gathered, and so much is decided immediately.

it’s a first date – nothing of substance is actually decided – except perhaps the future of a budding relationship.

and of course words have no basis of influence in the matter.

words are superfluous.

so we ordered dinner.

****

she played with her hair a lot.

flipping it one way. then another. then back again.

they say this is a good sign.

for me.

of course, what the fuck do they know.

****

they also say don’t talk about ex’s. don’t talk about marriage. don’t talk about engagement rings, and the future, and white picket fences, and what you want your kids names to be.

we talked about all of this.

thumbing our noses at what they say.

and what they say to do.

we say what we do, and we do what we say to do.

words are superfluous, but actions never are.

****

our first kiss was a throwback to middle school.

we were shy almost to the point of immaturity.

a gradual progression from walking, to casual touching, to holding hands, to clutching, to kissing; it was a freight train set in motion by the first words we uttered.

it was inevitable.

which is presumptuous to say, but actually presuming very little.

i think its natural for any date (even a bad one) to progress along the same lines as ours.

a kiss at the end of the date is not a flashing neon sign of guaranteed success.

but a partially concealed smile (dancing on the heels of a first kiss) may be the next best thing.