Barretta

Cold beer, hot wings, old friends, college football, and the discussion of virtue: yes, I am ready for the next year.

I woke up a few minutes ago in the total darkness of six o’clock. The power out and the streetlamps dead and the moon not visible leaving this room black: no difference between open eyes and closed. It reminded me, suddenly and without explanation, of an ex. Now we no longer speak but when we were together we were sweet to one another. She worked and went to school and I worked seventy hours a week and when we saw each other we fell into bed immediately, and to sleep.

Now it may be the darkness or the chill but I am remembering the drowsy trysts, the innocently entwined bodies, and feeling a terrible and predicate sense of loss. I do not know how to place a value on her long hair on my shoulder or my arm around her waist. I cannot quantify this reverie or its value to me. Now in sex it is true that men get inside of women, but in this sort of intimacy it seems to me the opposite occurs: you open your arms, and the body of the man, which is so often a fortress, rejecting casual touch, receives in its confines the woman to defend.

And defend is the word, because when the slender limbs and sleek figure of the girl looks up from the circle of your arms, in the sweet vulnerability of half-sleep, the urge that wells up in your throat to protect this smaller, softer counterpart is overwhelming, dizzying. These are the moments that you know what you feel for her is not all foolishness. Having said this and wondered at it I am returning to bed.

It occurs to me that what I write could be termed sentimental or that some men could say that by saying it I have gone soft. They may say what they like as they walk and talk and laugh in the waking world. In the world of sleep there are no lies.

Just when things get semi-interesting it turns out that I got the phone calls I was waiting for, life is going back to normal, and I’m going out to get some drinks. For those of you that bore with me through the childish parade of whimsical libido that was the last few hours, congratulations for surviving the First Annual Day Of Getting People To Unfollow Me Because Fuck Them. For those of you that didn’t, well, fuck you. In conclusion, I leave you with these simple words of wisdom as we return to our regularly scheduled adulthood:

SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!

thewiltedbrew:

My brothers from another mother. I miss you both. I hate that I’m the eldest, though. Can I just stay 23 and never speak about my age again?

Dude, as far as I’m concerned, you’ll be 23 forever if you want to be. I’m cool with the aging process because I have it on good authority that my beard is magisterial and I’m getting progressively sexier as my features accrue the solemn dignity of a man of the world. Or something like that.