build me //up

it didn't occur to me at first: oh, that's the guy with the money

I shook his hand it was nothing.
Then he ran through his schpiel to four of us and hardly looked at anyone else.
his eyes
his slight speech impediment
his round features and bearing

It was nothing.

We all went to dinner
and laughed and joked

then he sat by me at work
and at lunch
 - he came to me -
and i felt the heat that comes with that

i thought to ask for his number
because he certainly couldn't call me
so i asked
and he said "2",
a response I know,
but I'd already started so i pressed
and he asked why
which isn't a good sign
and i said so we could invite you if the whole crew was going out
(because saying I want to spend time with you was a little premature)
and he ... didn't want to give it ...
which i see now
and makes sense.
but he told me how to get it.
so i did.

and we texted and sent pics back and forth
and talked and he constantly made me laugh
and when I spoke he was either looking me in the eye
or glancing at my mouth
which was only distracting because then I was conscious of my mouth.

maybe his speech impediment is deaf-related and
he reads lips to help for understanding.
It's funny I don't know.

He's married.
or he wears a ring,
hardly matters nothing comes of this.
she's real. and cute.

I invite him out but he's sleeping.
then 'he hopes to make it up to me tonight'
and my heart flops about.
chemotions, you know.
but I can't cuz friends and that'll surely put a damper on
whatever
this is.

then we're at different parties and he texts me
and I find him and he stays by my side
and buys me a drink and we talk
and he stays close to me
and everyone who shouldn't see us talking
i can't see
because this reasonable funny attractive successful nerdy and awesome guy is with me

I'm drunk and he's ... something ...
and we skip my floor on the way up
because I wasn't getting off there at all
and he justifies my action by re-upping the offer
of this stupid thing he had to give me
and the thing is quite awful and I laugh
and then I'm shooed out

dismissed

but there's a lot going on in me.
I'm always wrong about these things
but this is reciprocal.
it is.
yeah?
I don't want to ruin his marriage or
anything like conquer or win or take.
so after stressing in my room for some minutes
i put my shoes on
and go back to his.

He's mentioned he sleeps early
but it's way late and his light's on.
I hear shuffling after I knock
and he opens the door wide in a tee and gym shorts and says 'yeah?'
I say 'I would have texted, but I thought you wouldn't respond.'
And he looks at me curiously so I say what I came to say:
I was hoping to keep you company.
and he takes a second (I think)
as I stand there swaying (totally am)
then says 'I'd prefer not'
and I am suddenly aware of the entire width of the door between us
nothing conspiratorial there
of the gulf of expectation
and the difference between wishing and wanting and hope.
It was only a moment
before my shrunken brain was coherent enough to babble out an
'I'll see you later then'
because this was the second time in two weeks I'd had to make that sort of recovery.

i went back to my room in silence, passing through the screams that live there,
and lost myself to the coolness and dark.


I'm not even gay.
a friend recently put it best.
in response to the inquiry he said:
Hans is into personality, not gender.
and that gets like, 80% of it,
which is more than I've ever been able to get a handle on.



I wanted to apologize, because I was mortified,
but I wasn't.
I was planning to say:
I'm sorry that I put you in that position, but I'm not sorry I said it.
because for the first time in my life I wasn't.
I went through hell and back about betraying and lying
and being a sucker and 'inappropriate' and why am I like this
that's not who I want to be.
then it hit me: this is exactly who I want to be.
a person who asks for the things he wants or needs.
absolutely yes.
If I'm fired, there'll be more jobs.
If they hate me, I was clearly misjudging.
But I need to move on what's in me.
So thank you for letting me sink into your eyes
and feel physical ecstasy thinking about you while killing time on the job
because dreaming of satiating satisfaction is a means to making it reality.