Spare Minute or Sixty

Don't you sometimes wonder why we're doing all this?

We're both going through life like the other's a bonus, something to be squeezed in when we have a spare minute or sixty, something to be enjoyed and then forgotten about as we move on to more serious, more important affairs. And we pretend, because we've got that spare minute or sixty for each other, that this whole 'us' bit is a Priority.

But can you even imagine a future with me, five years down the line? I'll be in grad school, and you'll be who knows where, embroiled in research or in an underground bunker wearing your flat face as you consider a panel of gauges. And we're supposed to do what? Be married at that point? Have had a quiet church wedding that'll satisfy your parents but that I won't have believed a whit in? Go to church every Sunday, so I can think about the implications of Facebook for adolescent sexuality as I desperately try to ignore the sermon? Go home in the afternoons to our little apartment, where you'll immediately start on dinner and I'll retreat to my desk and ignore everything but schoolwork, including you and your food? Go to bed at night, where you'll briefly cuddle with me, and then wake up at 3:07 in the morning, wishing like a six year old about to blow out his birthday candles that you were sleeping alone?

We don't even have to go that far. How's this summer going to play out, do you think? At the very least, you're going to be two hours away, probably more. You'll text me every once in a while, tell me about some minor aspect of your day, and you won't call more than twice the entire summer. Mostly, I'll text you, silly sweet stuff like "I'm thinking of you," and when you don't answer, I'll eventually give up, and we'll go days without exchanging so much as an emoticon. And the entire time, I'll be here, meeting people and flirting the way I always flirt, but you'll seem farther and farther away, until I can't even remember the way that you smell, much less the mingled taste of scotch and dark chocolate as we kiss. I'll compare every single last male to you and find that they come up short, and I'll still wonder why all I'm doing is flirting, because I won't really have you, except as a single line on Facebook regarding my relationship status.

But in the meantime, in that spare minute or sixty, we wrap our arms around each other, taste the salt on the other's neck, and pretend that the rest of the world doesn't exist, and it is fabulous. I remember that night on the roof when we were dancing with the lightning, off a few miles, flashing all around us, and you leaned down and kissed me and I went up on relevée to meet you and closed my eyes - the entire world disappeared, and it was just you and me. It was just us. It was just your lips on mine. It was just my arms pressing into the fleece of your jacket. It was just the warmth of your hand on the back of my neck. It was just us. And then I opened my eyes and we broke the kiss and we both panted hard as we fought to catch our breath and leash it, and it was physically painful to look around and see that the clouds had moved in and there was an entire other world outside of us, and we had to go back to it. Immediately.

After every spare minute or sixty we manage for each other, we go our separate ways. You go back to your desk, to your computer, adding just a few more shades of depth to the purple beneath your eyes, and I go back to my empty bed, where I toss and turn and try to imagine that you're holding me so I can fall asleep, but since I can't quite picture it, I never really get there.

Maybe I'm ungrateful, or maybe I'm naive, or maybe I don't really have a heart - just an overactive imagination to make up for the lack. But I can't help but sometimes wonder why we're doing all this - is this what love's really like?