Your Girl

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time not falling for you.

I’ve not read anything into your letters,
not heard anything in the subtext of our conversations.

When you pick me up for dinner, I make small talk;
my kids, the weather, that song on the radio.
I look away when I feel your eyes lock on me, even when I feel I your hunger.
I keep my hands in my own lap,
not even giving you the warm embrace
that is the customary greeting for people like me.

I spend the evening like this,
basking in your glow but not allowing any of it to sink in.
Our friendship sits on the surface of my consciousness –
always there, but never anything more than oh-so-casual.

When you drop me off again, I fumble with my purse,
Refuse to look up into your crystal blue eyes.
I don’t peek at your soft mouth,
Don’t imagine it covering mine in a devouring kiss.
I don’t allow the rising longing created by
your arms around me before I bolt out of the car and up the stairs into my flat.

And yet, that first night we danced in your living room
and both of us sang the chorus:
“I said, Are you going to be my girl?”

and I have not been able to shake myself clean of
your voice asking me that question in the deepest part of my heart.

What would it be like to be “Your Girl?”
To be claimed by you?
To hear your voice before bed at night?
To feel your hand in the small of my back as we walk by the lake?

To finally look up and see you, all of you,
the beauty and the reality of your very being?
To finally show you all of me as well?
Without hiding.
Without ambiguity.

I suspect that it would feel like being wrapped in silk,
Held protectively and kept safe.
I suspect it would be like flying,
like walking on water,
like the sweetest drink after days in the desert.

Being your girl, I suspect, would be like coming home.