To play it cool...

This time last night, I was stroking your hair, you were lying in my arms, and I was thinking about how soft your skin was and how worrying it is to take a step into the unknown.

I want to send you a text message or an email, but I can't because I don't know what's going to happen with you. I don't know whether or not you want me. I don't know whether or not I want you. I'd give you up for H, for example. Or A. I don't know you, I don't know who you are or what you're like, hardly anything. I know you smoke joints, you've got your uniform, you give me little things. Do you want me around? Are you possessive or jealous, will you fly off the handle, what are you like? You're so taciturn.

I know you didn't force me. I know you're shy. Pourquoi tu me regardes comme ca? Parce que tu es belle. J'aime te regarder.

Another part of me doesn't want to give you any hope. What if someone else comes along, and I have to break you? I'm not sure who I want just at this moment. It's you, I think. I don't want to give you false hope. Yet, in another moment, I'm imagining us lying together and saying, 'je t'aime'. I'd be surprised and say, 'oh'. Toujours inattendu, ca. Then I'd say, 'je t'aime aussi, cherie. Je t'aime'.

I'd like to be round you now. Curled up with you. Last night, early in the morning, you put your arms around me and said, 'j'ai envie de toi'. Little things. I was so sure that I didn't fancy you that much, and now I'm uncertain.

I don't want you to hurt me, and I don't want to hurt you.

You have got
Brown eyes
That watch me
And snaggly little teeth
You make love as if
You're a man
Though less rough
And when you touch me
So gently
I can't help but want you.

Oh, how?

I meet you and you give me a tiny yellow man. Bonhomme jaune. I'm not sure about you. When I'm with you, you are soft and beautiful but you're not H. I don't adore you. But I can't help but think of your arms. You are taciturn, by nature, and have a perfect body, wrapped up in a uniform of grey and denim, to make you look masculine. You're so beautiful.

We have sex, and you're so brusque, as if you're stuffing a chicken. It's easy, but it doesn't set me on fire. Yet, I like it. I like you. I'm just not sure exactly how much. It's odd, how much you remind me of J, with your messy studio flat and hints at other things, deeper and darker. 'Pourquoi tu me regardes comme ca?' you ask. I say, 'parce que t'es belle. J'aime regarder', and stroke your angular face. Odd. You're taciturn when we're not in each other's arms, and I'm taciturn when we are, because I'm evaluating how much I like you. More than or less than? You feel so much more direct when we're half naked. Clearer than I am. In the day, it's the other way round, dressed in our armour, me as a lady (you say) and you in your uniform.

I decided to sleep with you because I do like you, because it was nice to touch you and hear you. Because I should take more risks, I can't just live closed off. But I didn't really love it.

It is nice, in the middle of the night, to have you turn over and put your arms around me and hold my hand. Your spindly little arms that are so strong. I feel calmer, as if I've been destrung, or just repaired somehow. I feel as though you've cleared me out or cleaned me up, though you don't know that.

It's an odd mix. It's not like the other one night stand I had, so difficult and out-of-body. It's more involved but I'm not sure how involved I actually am.

I am sure that you're beautiful. I'm sure that your skin is soft. You're shy, but not when we're together like that.

I don't know why, I got these feelings, yeah...

Oooh. And suddenly, everything changes. I'm not as in love with R as I was, it's settled, and I need to move away, I need to be independent. I want my own space. I want a minimalist place with Danish colours and my book collection on shelves, a cigarette tray, things I've chosen. I also want a job, a good one. I imagine my perfect life relentlessly. That's not what this is about. I've fallen so easily for a woman I've known ten minutes. HC. She lives in another country. She's a friend of a friend, and she knows about maths. She elucidates in short, simple terms and looks shy, but is fierce. She is kind. She hasn't responded to my facebook request.

She's probably not interested in girls. She probably wouldn't come here. I'm probably simply so desperate for someone that I'm ready to fall for the first person that seems reasonable.

It's just that she's so easy. We went out for the day (and the night) with a group of friends. I went to pick someone up from a station with her, and we danced together at night, and I want her to be here now. I want her to be in this little room, telling me intelligent, true things. I want to tell her true things. Not necessarily intelligent ones, because we are inverse; she's so clever, she doesn't need words with more than three syllables. I adore words with more than three syllables, perhaps to put a superficial shell over the vacuity that is my intelligence.

 I'd tell her that I think she's beautiful. I'd tell her that I want her so badly, and I almost never want people badly straight away like that. I'd tell her that even her middle name's not so bad. I'd tell her that I can think of nothing lovelier than the way she dances and includes people, I would tell her that I was sorry I couldn't stop staring and she caught me twice, but I just thought, 'how can it be that I've fallen this fast?'. I wasn't expecting it. It caught me offguard.

And now. You live far away. You've got a career. Even if you were magically interested in women, and then, even more magically, interested in a woman like me, overly garrulous, with no real handle on the world. No real career, no real anything, and there you are, ready to jet off on a tangent but with your feet on the ground. So there, so present. A present. For me. An unexpected union, because at least we did do things together. I'd have kissed you if you'd seemed as if you wanted me to. It would never have happened.

I'd have... I wished for an act of prestidigitation. Somehow.

 There's never a somehow with me, because I never get what I want. I never want what I get. Those two are very different, but very similar. Yet, still, you explained that 'i' was an illogical number, like pi. You answered. You were so kind to everyone, and not as K is, demanding something in return. Just kind. You danced like I did, you were angry that Liverpool accents weren't taken seriously, you straightened your hair and wore leg warmers. You looked perfect, to me. You're so beautiful, I realised, around two hours in. Your face with its upturned lip over your front teeth, your dark shiny hair, your cheekbones and your blue eyes with hooded lids that look, sage and perceptive, at the world. The way that you laugh. Yes, you are lovely, and you've probably got many others telling you so, so I shouldn't bother.

I have people telling me I'm lovely, even beautiful, but it's nobody that I want to inform me of this fact. Men that want to take me for coffee, for a drink, for an 'intimate soiree', for something. I'm sure that they want something long term that I can't give because I adore people like you. Honest, steadfast people that make me really laugh. I light up for the world, people tell me, but nobody really lights me up. It's rare. It's palindromic, an oxymoron, something. People fall for me, they say, because of my face, my ways, my 'lightness of being'. French women are light of body and heavy of mind, and I'm the exact opposite. Lightness of character, because I weigh over 80 kilos. In any case, I'd give up all of those times, those times that someone has told me I'm beautiful to get something from me that I didn't want to give, a smile, a hand, or something else, to hear it from you. I'd exchange them for insults. I'd...

 That's the thing, though. Attracting someone like you isn't as easy as attracting all of them, which I do inadvertently. I don't mean to. I want to be friends, and then, suddenly, they want more. Now it's me that wants more. It's me that's heavy, that weighs on you, that would force... I don't want to force. I couldn't ever get anyone like you. Someone so beautiful and honest, so funny and kind and clever and steadfast, must want someone steadfast and kind and intelligent. Someone like you doesn't want a silly, overgrown girl, who's vague and silly, who masks a lack of knowledge with an egregious vocabulary and her sheer verbosity, who doesn't earn. Someone like you deserves someone better.

 That doesn't stop me from fantasising about holding your hand or caressing your face. Oh darling.

Whispering, whispering, whispering your name.

Is what I've been doing, thinking of you for two weeks on Parisian streets. Whispering to myself (late at night, when nobody else is in sight) that I adore you, darling, and you're beautiful and I hope you're well.

You're worried about H again. Your back aches. I came up to see you (you made me smile) and drank tea, and what I really wanted to do was just put my arms around you and stroke you. I want to wake up in the morning with the softness of your skin next to me, and caress you. You deserve to be woken up by caresses.

You said you would try to be 'discret' with me and V, in the sense of unobtrusive. Oh darling, please don't. You're still the main person in my life at the moment, so there's no need to be. You're not easily replaced. There's no need. I couldn't say that without it all coming out, so I just said, 'non, pas du tout' and smiled at you.

I thought maybe I'd have knocked this feeling on the head. But I can't, dear. When I saw you again, I just wanted to hold you and touch you and make you feel so good. Maybe tomorrow. I want to lean over and kiss you, I want to tell you how much it means to faire des bisous each night, how much it means to just be chatting to you, calmly and quietly. How much you mean to me. And you mean an awful lot. J'ai soif de toi. That's what I won't tell you tomorrow.

You bring me back cigarettes and a lighter and tell me the things that made you think of me. You thought of me. I think of you, often. I need a way of telling you you're important to me whilst not scaring you with this passion. I am looking out for other people, but the problem is qu'elles n'arrivent pas a ta cheville.

Tomorrow we'll eat together and relax, and I'll smoke (you probably will too) and you'll sort your things and I will offer to massage your back at some point. And I'll recite Les Aveugles for you. Let me let me let me faire ce qui te rends heureuse.

I am grateful for you.

I am missing you. I joked today, to the Supermodel, that I was wearing your clothes because I missed you. I put on your coat because it's nearest to hand and it's got pockets for cigarettes and matches, because it buffets me against the wind, I put on your shoes because they're easiest to slip on- but a part of me does like wrapping myself up in the fabric that held your body, soft and safe. I laughed after I'd told her, but there's an element of truth. Tu me manques.

And I'm grateful because you're there, my love. You're present. You're there to laugh with, to tease gently, to be kind to, to share my worries with, and you, in turn, share yours with me. It's very gentle, what we've got. Very sweet. As soft and gentle as the kiss you give me every morning and night, as soft as your silken face, as soft as the scent of soap that emanates from you. You know what I'm thinking, or more to the point, how I think and don't correct my speech because you understand; you understand my pride and you understand me, without having perfect pronunciation. You're kind. And so I am grateful, for this relationship, which, although not the grande coup de foudre, is a bond. A link for me and for you. Between us.

It's something that E, my sister hasn't got. She hasn't got someone to shout, 'bonjour' to when she comes home, she hasn't got someone to remark on the cold to, she hasn't got someone to discuss the finer points of various sorts of bread with. They're the things that are not important, but open the doors to other things. H's epilepsy. Your husband. How I feel about my family. They're the things that I like talking about, the unimportant things that are nonetheless interesting. They're the things I need in the day. Someone to pass the time of day with. It's lucky that you're also beautiful and interesting and funny, and so loving. It's so unlucky that E hasn't. I wish I could give her a week with your safety, with you being with her as you are with me. Life is about having someone to be with. I'm so glad that I'm with you. It's not romantic, it's not even close. But you do love me, in your way, and I don't think that it will change. Friends, or family. Stable and kind, and soft.

Today: things I'd tell you.

Que ton echarpe m'a garde bien chauffee aujourd'hui, malgre le froid.

Que la lune etait belle au-dessus de nos toits.

Que mon joue est fraiche.

Que j'ai mange tant de choses.

Que la supermodele m'a fait du cous cous. Elle est gentille, mais elle ne serait jamais une personne comme toi; c'est a dire, quelqu'une avec qui j'ai cette relation si tendre et si chaleureuse; cette reconaissance d'esprit. Je n'ai pas pense qu'on aurait trouver ca, en commencant. Tu etais chic et reserve et altiere. Mais maintenant, c'est moi qui chauffe pour toi; c'est toi qui me fait des bises, qui me donne des choses, qui montes toutes les trucs que je te donne a toute le monde.

Et si ta journee ne s'est passe bien, je veux te caresser la visage et te donner un bisou, de te prendre par la main et de te carrer confortable dans mes bras. De te dire que tu es belle, tu es fiere et tu es honnete et gentille et intelligente, et surtout que tu m'es si importante. O, ma cherie. Je veux etre la pour toi, quand tu as besoin.

You've gone away for a few days

With H, who's so needy at the moment. I look back and see that there was once a phase when we didn't kiss every day. It's not a real kiss. Just two, on the cheek, the bisous. But once we didn't. Then, after two months, we started- and now it's odd to have a day when you don't kiss me goodbye in the morning or kiss me goodnight.

What I want is to massage your back again. I don't know whether or not you found it odd, or whether you (like me) think it's something we don't do when there are others around, or whether you think it's putting on me. It's not, in any case.

You've made a rod for your own back
Which has already taken so many lashes
You feel like you have to cook
Because it's what you do
And you try so hard to be serene
But it's all paddling frantically underneath
And my love
I want to take you in my arms
And make you happy
And touch my lips to yours
If it's what you want.
You deserve someone you want
And I'd love it to be me
But I can't see
How I could ever find out
Without ruining what we've got
Four daily kisses
Twilight poetry recited under the stars of Parisian rooftops
And your seldom touch
And eternal companionship.
It's a risk.