All adventurous women do.

OK… I’m hooked.

Sometimes you just gotta tell it like it is.

In these fantasies, I tell myself you’d be glad to see me.  I tell myself you’d be glad to kiss me, because really, it’s been such a long time, and I’m so much better at it than I used to be.

I’m stronger inside and out now.  I’ve filled out where I used to cave in.  Where my bones used to protrude, I’m equipped with hips and a chest that can hold the weight of my heart.  My ribs have learned to stop the crushing forces that used to come coupled with strong jawlines, calloused hands and carelessness.

Time has made me different, and I’m sure it has changed you as well.  I can only hope you’d find the woman I’ve become easy to hold, and I’d find the man you’ve grown in to hard to let go.

And when we parted for the last time, it seemed infinitely sadder than ever before. I pulled out of your driveway, and I think I knew that you’d never know I loved you and I’d never know if we could have overcame all those bitter words and crushed feelings to be something greater than you and me.

I half expected you to run after me and kiss me passionately like they do at the end of those romance movies, but my car turned off your street and that was that.  You were headed north, and I was headed home to nurse those gaping wounds that years of “what ifs” would always reopen.

We’re sitting outside by my pool with our legs kicking in the water.  Your jeans are rolled up to your knees and my dress is hiked up to my thighs, which you casually rest your hand on, and I feel my whole body shake under your touch.

It kills me some nights that you can do these things to me.  It kills me that just one touch from your rough hands or look from your brown eyes can make me quiver and cave, when you are so sturdy and just out of reach of my longing hands.  I’ll probably toss and turn tonight thinking about how I should have kissed you or how I should have told you I love you and how I should have grasped your face in my hands and kissed you.  I should have kissed you till I couldn’t breath or hard enough so you couldn’t tell me this night won’t mean a quarter to you of what it does to me.

It’s thoughts like these that keep me up at night.  I toss and turn, and I wonder how to tell you that this has to be love.  This feeling that burns in my chest can’t just be lust, because I’ve felt lust, and I’ve never felt like this with anybody else but you.

Before I can say anything you lean in and kiss me, and I feel like my body is melting into the water my legs are in.  It’s the first time you’ve kissed me in a long time, and I feel myself tremor, and I feel in your touch how much you’ve changed since the last time.  You’re stronger and more confident, and part of me is missing that sweet boy, that shy and reclusive stranger, but he’s gone, and I’m left with this new boy who is just pretending to be a man.

Come and put a little love here in my void.

This growing old is getting old, and I often find myself here thinking about the birds, the boats and past loves that flew away or started sinking.

And it’s crazy here without you.  I used to think this all was ours.

We’d stay up late and debate on how we’d find our way- you say it’s all up in the stars.

We were born with the sun in our teeth and in our hair.

Fast as you can.