Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs … by holly hollenbeck

My eyes are always scanning for him. Will he come in tonight? I know that when he comes over to speak to me, I will no longer feel the suffocation of the hot and crowed bar. I will be able to breathe again. And in my pathetic drink-clouded mind, I think it is no good to breathe at all when I only wish to breathe for him. 

My too full drink drips down my hand as I sip from the rim. I catch his eye and his sweet smile sears my skin. It is a smile only on the surface though. He will never know how badly I wish to make him smile for me, a smile from deep within. Because somewhere along the line of this clearly defined non-relationship of passion, I blindly started loving him.

He texts: “You are making me horny.” And he adds a purple devil face emoji for effect. I respond: “It’s about time. It has been too long.” 

I go to wait for him. I light the candles, spray the Channel, and turn on the fan. And I wait. The anticipation is always so intense and even though it varies so little, it is still so hot for all its predictability. I am so very ready. I can already see his tan hard muscles flex as he removes his clothes and sets them neatly on the dresser across from the bed.

Janis Joplin’s “To Love Somebody” plays from the Bose. He will not notice the lyrics though. He never does. I hear them. I hear them all the time. I am all those feelings. They swim around in my brain wishing to breech the rim and spill out. He would not understand this. He will “never know what it is like” to love alone.

When at last I hear his truck pull up outside, I try to find a sexy pose for his first sight of me. No, I was mistaken. It was the neighbor’s arrival in the drive nearby. I slump back down into the pillows and let the music love me alone for a while longer. 

My mind starts to dance that burden of worry. What if he does not show up? It has been too long. It is way past want for me and down the hill into the realm of need, of necessity. It feels like love and I am starving for the feeling however fake or temporary it is for him. In my mind, it is real and permanent. In my brain of delusion, he is my everything. I love him really.

I know I do not have him though. Never did I have him. Fleeting sweaty moments of ecstasy, I realize are just that and nothing more. The rest is just the man I love in my mind. That man is there, and I tell myself I will reach him eventually. I want to live my whole life with that man. I cling to those looks he gives me which must be deeper than just a physical passion. In those moments of bliss, those looks are love. Those looks show depths of loving promise still out of my grasp, but there, nonetheless. Those looks are the crumbs that sustain me in my desperation.

I push reality out of my mind. I want this fantasy. I want his need and his excitement. They feed my hunger. I want to feel full even just for those moments he is in my arms. And the constant anticipation of when and if he will want me again. His return visits are my validation, my confirmation of value. 

I do not ask why his validation in this carnal way matters to me. I know why. Because I love him. I love the image I have of him in my brain. How could one not love that invention? It is steady and it is stable. It is ideal. So why would I pick at those feelings? I do not wish to bleed. 

I am still alone and waiting with my anticipation of the meal ahead. However small, it will sustain me as I am used to drought and starvation. I can manage now with very little. I have forgotten what a full meal is like. 

I jump with the sound of the truck in the drive. I jump to the blinds and peak out. There he is! I can leave my thoughts behind. I can live and breathe again. 

So fleeting are those moments and then he is gone. 

I feel the bloat of the life sustaining morsels he fed me. I can smell and feel him on me still. The bed is still warm, but I am alone again in my spacious mind of scattered thoughts. I do not want to bear them: It is not enough; I deserve more; I should not give it away; I am alone in this love; …I am pathetic. 

He will never know because I will never tell him. If a guy can remain emotionless and reach such highs physically, then I can as well. This is the lie I tell myself. He never lied to me though. He said he was emotionally dead and would not be able to ever love again. Of course, I never heard him. My romantic mind believes there is hope. I re-read his texts and find interest beyond the physical in his kind and friendly conversation. I find love in his look and in his intensity in the bedroom. I write a script of love on the tiniest of morsels. There must be love or why does he keep coming back? He can get “it” anywhere… and so can I. 

I have tried to love others. I have had endless dates and conversations, pouring myself out in clever sentences of texts and emoji feelings. I have tried all the online sites and countless meets for coffee or cocktails. There is always something wrong. And even when the compatibility is there, the chemistry is off. I seem to not have the ability to feel “it” with another.

It is hard to explain exactly what this is like. I know I love him. I know it is wrong for me to love him. I know it is a love only in my imagination. Somehow that has become the strongest love I have ever known. This love that exists only in my mind. 

The playlist is back to Joplin again: “Baby you don’t know what it’s like to love somebody… the way I love you.” He does not hear those lyrics. He is long gone. HE was never here to begin with, only in my mind. 

I blow out the candle and slip down beneath the now cold sheets.