Friday, August 14, 2009
Weekend Love
For whatever reason I didn’t think he was looking at me, even though it felt like he was staring into my very soul. I just figured that he was lost in thought. It’s what I do.
Then when I walked past him, I saw him turn and as if in slow motion, he took a step in my direction…
…so I turned my head and looked over my shoulder and there was that stare...looking into my very soul…again.
He followed me with one step, then stopped in my personal space and had it been anywhere else other than a Wal-Mart store on a muggy day, in the middle of a small town, a country town, I probably would have high-tailed it out of there…
But he was beautiful to look at, more than beautiful actually…he was painful too look at because something in me…was drawn to something in him…
And I knew I’d not see him again… and I couldn’t help but be blessed to have him…looking at me…approaching me…the way he was… I sort of felt emotional in an odd and funny way…
“I…I…my name is Justin”, he said. With a slight stutter to the beginning of his sentence…as if he had caught himself off guard by his own boldness, he just stood there, clearly wondering if he should say more or if he had said too much. He gave a look as if to ask himself, what the hell am I doing?
I stood there for a minute, half turned to walk away but then instinctively I turned towards him and gave him all of me, as I said, “my name is Bloopty.”
Oddly, I didn’t know where to go from there because I was literally…just that slow with my responses. I wanted to tell him I loved him and ask if I could have his baby, cook his meals and wash his draw’rs and what was his mamas name, and where were his people from and if we could go back there and start our own legacy of love and family…but…he, Justin, had literally just walked up to me so…
…none of that could be said and none of it would have made sense and I realized once again and silently, that I am rambling in my head about some man 800 miles away from where I live, in the doorway of a Wal-Mart as my 2 aunts and 1 cousin watched me…
“You’re very beautiful I am here visiting family I live in Durham, North Carolina You are truly adorable.”
All of this said in one long run-on sentence as if he was a bad actor stumbling over cheap lines…and all I could do was smile.
Quickly I’d calculated the possibilities of this conversation going any further and knew that they were next to none but I was basking in his beautiful smooth chocolate face and conscious enough to know that if I leaned in just a bit more …he’d lean in too… and we’d be kissing…our attraction was that strong and his eyes saw it and with them he almost dared me…
But as soon as I calculated that, within a millisecond… I leaned the opposite direction and took a step back and damn near felt faint in that one small movement…
I blinked my eyes and may have licked my lips…trying to come back from some place that I had been in with this stranger, who’d cast his spell so quickly…and thoroughly. It was clear that he felt exposed and a little open …but I couldn’t say anything to that…because I’d just met…this man …named Justin…and…because I unexplainably felt the same way. I may have tripped over my own feet while turning away as I said…
“Thank you. Have a good day.”
…and just like that, I missed him terribly.
And out of nowhere…conversation around me became audible again and all at once, I heard my aunties talking to me like I’d been involved in the conversation all along, I responded and fell in step as we made our way across the parking lot to the car.
I wanted to turn around but I fought myself on that because for some insane and unexplained reason I thought I might actually run after him, up to him and jump into his arms and beg him to please take me to wherever he was going as long as I was with him…
…but I didn’t, I didn’t turn around to see if he was looking at me, I didn’t acknowledge the teasing from my family, I didn’t try and think of what it all meant, I didn’t do anything other than…
…walk away from perfection and quite possibly my soul mate.
# posted by Blah Blah Blah : 11:15 PM
