Dalton

Noun

They say you never forget your first time.

The first time I felt accepted.

The first time I ran towards the unknown just because a pretty boy was holding my hand.

The first time I had to fight to prove my talent with other boys (it was always the girls, before).

The first time I realised life might not be so bad after all. The first time I knew it-could-get-better.

The first time I fell in love.

I owe it all to the school with the sweeping staircases, and the choir of boys who stepped in time.

I owe it all to you.

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Dandelion

Noun

I read a book once where the characters used Dandelion as a way to say I love you.

It got me thinking: What would we say, if I Love You scared us, or to whisper what we felt in secret, our own personal dedication?

I might say coffee. I might say coffee because it was the first thing we shared, and everything we have was built on that. On you sliding a latte across the table, before you knew me, knew what I liked. I might say coffee because it was the beginning, and years from that moment, and years from those boys, I taste coffee and it tastes like you.

I might say Blackbird. I might say Blackbird because I sang a song and it made your heart swell. I sang a song, and for the first time in a little while it wasn’t about you, and that, ironically, was when I finally caught your attention. I might say Blackbird because that was the first time I realised that love, and you, could fix things. Take a sad song, they said, and make it better. I was grieving and you kissed me, and the sad song became an anthem, and the blackbird flew, and what was left was us. Was you.

I might say teenage dream, not because you sang it but because you were it. I might say the name of my first New York street, and the memory of clinging quietly to you, anxious not to be heard by my nosy roommates. I might say the name of your first New York street. Same reason.

Or maybe it would be the sofa we bought together when we finally admitted that living with your boyfriend at 19 isn’t a stupid idea when you’re us. The brown leather where we lay until it cracked, your head on my chest, bare feet rubbing together. In every second we spent there, I loved you.

It could be the pink carnation you gave me at my prom, a flower meaning “I’ll never forget you; You are always on my mind”. It could be the red rose I gave to you at yours, unoriginal, but I Adore You was the only thing I needed it to say, and it was classic, just like you are.

All of these tiny life things remind me just how much I need you.

These are the souvenirs of our romance; the details to our big picture; our things that have come to mean love.

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Decant

Verb

“Wine relaxes me” you said, the first time, and hours later, after karaoke and kisses and your hands on my waist as I wrestled you semi-concious in to my bed, I had to admit you had been right.

You were looser when you drank. Your inhabitions disappeared, and it was their absence that made me realize they existed at all. You would tell me what you were thinking, and sometimes we would fight, but it almost always ended with your hands on my waist, me wrestling you in to my bed, just like the first time, before we were we.

But so much better.

I felt guilty; manipulative almost, but sometimes, when I felt like you were holding back, I would open a bottle, and I would pass you a glass.

And I would wait.

Like the night before I graduated, drinking cheap champagne on top of my bed clothes, too sad to even ruffle the duvet; too sad to do anything but just be there. (What if we don’t make it, Kurt?)

Or when your dad got sick, and a bottle of Merlot in the airport seemed like a life line. When my holding your hand just wasn’t working like it should, and I didn’t know what else to do. (What if he never knows how much I love him?)

The weekend before our wedding, you thought I hadn’t noticed. I found you in the utility room, perched on top of the washing machine with a glass of White. You tried to rearrange your face when you saw me, tried to smile, but you weren’t quick enough. I knew, and it scared me. Was this (I don’t know if I love you) or (I don’t know if the time is right)? I grabbed a glass and jumped right up there with you.

We sat in silence.

After your second glass it was (How can anyone be this happy, Kurt?), and (How did I get to deserve this?). All you had ever known was things ending. I poured you another, and promised that we’d reach the end of the bottle, but never the end of us.

By your third glass, we were home, my hands in your hair and yours on my waist as I wrestled you in to our bed.

It has become an unspoken agreement of sorts. I open the wine, and you open yourself to me.

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Drive

Verb

We found each other in the back seat of your car.

We would stop and turn the headlights off, and fall in to each other, and the irony never escaped me that here in the dark, where I had to grope and fumble to make out your features, was the place you seemed brightest to me.

The shadows were where I saw you most clearly.

In the parking lot of the Lima Bean you told me about your parents; how they never said it, but you knew they disapproved of the way you lived your life. We were young, then, and I hadn’t found the words to make it better, so I told you I was sorry with my body, told you it was going to be ok with kisses and wandering fingers, and your tiny sighs began to feel a lot like an achievement.

In the dim light at the end of my driveway, I told you I was scared about New York. I knew I had talent, but I didn’t know if that was enough. I had carved out a place for myself in Lima, and I was scared to do that again. I was scared to leave my dad. To leave you. Your hands creeping beneath my shirt calmed me. By about the 4th tiny kiss to my neck I was beginning to forget I had even been worried.

The best parts, though, maybe, in a way, were the come downs. Crowded on top of each other in the back seat, ready, now, to be open, we would talk and talk and talk about nothing.

I sometimes worried we used sex as a distraction on those late night drives. I was wrong though. It wasn’t the sex that made us better, although that surely helped. It was the time, and the intimacy, and the bubble of you-and-me-together. Just us. That was the real remedy.

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Duvet

Noun

I’m safe under here with you.

Life is scary when you’re 20-something, but under the covers, my head tucked in to the crook of your neck, I find some kind of salvation.

Nothing can touch me here. (You can touch me, always).

It’s a wonder I ever leave this bed.