Body Before Brain

There is this boy.  I could tell you the whole of our history, the three incarnations of our relationship, each one ending for a different reason. 

And the same reason. 

I could tell you how each of the three times we tried to make something work were different from each other, a new version of an attraction that was so intense, neither one of us really understood how to make it into what we needed.  But the important thing to know is that it ended.

And that there was a time when I thought I could someday love this boy.

That possibility has passed.  Long since passed.  For many reasons.  For so so many reasons.  But still, when he called not long ago and wanted to try yet another version of our failure, it took every ounce of nerve I had to say, not this time.  The third time was not the charm.  And it left me feeling empty.  And I can’t let you make me feel empty anymore.  It’s not what you mean to do.  It’s maybe not even your fault in a way.  But it’s the (possibly) unintended consequence of your inability to someday love me too.

So I said no.  And that was the end of that.  And I know it was the right decision.  Because I can’t afford anything that makes me feel empty.  And it cannot afford me. 

And then today he appeared.  It was seconds.  Maybe ten.  Probably less.  It’s been so long since I had seen him, 7 maybe 8 months.  And he was out of place where I saw him.  Squarely on my turf.  Smack in the middle of the corner of my world he was never ever part of.  So out of place and so long since I saw him last that it took me a minute to connect the dots.  And there were dots to connect.  Because when I saw him I stopped talking.  Forgot for a split second where I was.  Heard nothing the people talking to me were saying.  It was a little like a movie, when the camera pans to the door and then stops, the only clear thing in the frame the person you are supposed to see.  My heart began to race, and I felt my stomach flutter. 

Just for a second.

And all before I realized who it was.

Because you see,

My body recognized him before my brain did.

My body, the subconscious part of me that knows him so well, that knows him so well that it recognized his energy before it recognized his face, the part of me that recognized his energy from the moment he first walked through a door many years ago before I even knew his face, that part of me is still in there somewhere. 

Buried.  Because it has to be.  Because it’s over.  Because he made it that way.  Because I want things he cannot give me. 

Like something to fill the empty.  Which he can’t do.  Because he doesn’t know how to be a part of something.  He knows only how to attract.

And a magnet never fills anything, it just pulls things in.

And I am not one to be moved without my permission.