Innocent

The page is from a pale lavender memo pad. I found it today, buried deeply in a box within a box. Today, I find it simple and naked, but unadulterated and sweet.

It was my first semester at college. I was still mixed up in some sort of complicated high school romance. (I don't believe high school sweethearts should stay together.) I wondered innocently what else the world would offer as I wrote the lines, propped up on an elbow and facing the wall. I remember the twin sized dormitory mattress, firm and uneven, covered in some sort of vinyl that would creak with every move. The mattress didn't bother me then because I had wrapped it up in the most predictable of leopard pattern sheets.

I was 19 years old.
How both everything and nothing have changed.

I like red painted toenails
     and independence
I like classic glamour
     and using words like
           fabulous
           marvelous
           scandalous!
I like feeling alive
     and music
I like learning people
     and being comfortable.

Don't lie to me
I want you to feel
my energy and
taste my passion

I like to be dramatic
     and honest

Be sincere with me
because I will love
you.
I am genuine. 

We are all liars.

Michael: Lulu, I'm sorry. 
Michael: Don't ask me to explain it, just know that I am sorry.
Received @1:18 am


I guess I'm not even going to ask.

---

I haven't talked to Mike since last fall, when I sent him a text message on the long drive home from Toronto. Of course, text would not convey how sobbing tears blurred the midnight traffic while the night weighed down empty and endless. Why was I crying?

Me: Its a shame that our friendship is ruined.
Me: I could really use a kindred spirit right about now.
Michael: It's not ruined.
Michael: You know you can always talk to me.
Me: But I won't. We won't. I'm just sorry, that's all.

We went to high school together but weren't friends until college. His apartment was near the highway and we used to stay up all night on Flaming Dr. Pepper shots and Metallica. A pyramid of Keystone cans displayed on the end table near the front door. Rooms littered with computer parts and guitars. My best friend Jennie was secretly in love with him, but I was the one who slept with him years ago - the night after he broke up with his girlfriend. Jennie never found out.

I wonder sometimes if he didn't just stay suspended there, not knowing how to forget.