02.14.2003 12:00 am
valentine's day

I love you, I love you, a million million million times over. I remember walking back to that shitty shitty dorm, thinking for sure that nobody would have sent me a carnation. Walking onto my floor and hearing, "Josie! Josie! You've got the most flowers of anybody!" A bundle of... thirteen? carnations, white and pink, across the threshold to my room. "The... Lord... Is... My... Shepherd...." Running, without hesitation, to find you. Because I knew it was you. I hoped it was you. And you were nowhere, only Colin upstairs wandering. I panted, "Where's James?" He smiled, said, "Follow me." And then I was in an unfamiliar secret passageway to the blackbox, and around a corner there you were, lying on the bench in the alcove. And I said... what did I say? Thank you? And you said, "For what?" "The flowers." "What flowers?" But I skipped a part. The kiss, first kiss of my life, right there, an upside-down kiss. Your lips, so soft. And then it was time for check-in, and I had to disappear, running back to the dorm, now noticing the cold and the night and the air. Late to check-in. Didn't care. Sat in the window of my room, looking out into the night, looking for you.

That was five years ago.

I went to see the play, "Love Letters" tonight, a reading in the lab theatre. It was good. Shit, who am I kidding? I'll never know if it was good or bad. But I loved it, because it struck home. Two people, courting each other through letters, one on the straight track, one not. The one who's not kills herself, and the man realizes he always loved her. Sappy, I know. It just made me think... This is my first Valentine's day

[and Anna starts to play "Des'ree - Kissing You." Oh, happy dagger.]

without you. I miss you, James, in a big, shitty way, and I wish you could be a part of my life forever. But you can't, because for whatever reason you've chosen not-me. And it sucks.

"And where are you now?

'Cause I'm kissing you."

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