Leaving

I have accepted a new job. One closer to home, which makes it much more practical.
Also? This relationship is way too much to me and it is more and more dangerous by the second.

If someone at work found out he would lose his job and that is not ok with me. (I would lose my job too, I think, but jobs at my level are much easier to find than jobs at his... clearly... it took me less than two weeks to interview and get another job).

People can see that there is something between us and it is really only a matter of time before someone actually catches on... and even if it didn't make it all the way up the gossip chain (which it would) it would ruin the just-now-healing bonds in the department. They have been through a lot of shit in the past 2 years or so, and this would not go over well.

I am terrified that I am going to lose him... though he has been so sweet and so quick to reassure me. We have plans to meet, and there are some options.

We talked about it today. We talked about how this relationship took us both by surprise. After the careful way we talked and planned and negotiated the terms of our physical relationship the love part just showed up. I knew I was going to love him from the beginning, but I didn't know it would hit me this hard. I didn't know that I would trust him this much... I didn't know that I would want him to not be married anymore. I didn't know that I would ever want a man in my house again. I didn't know that I would be so naked and exposed to him.

And he didn't know that he would fall in love with me. That he would ever even consider leaving her and coming home to me...

After our trip we both came home shaken and stunned by how good it was together. Today I told him that this was not going to get better. Every time we see each other is only going to further cement what we have together and it's just going to be that much harder to walk away.

It is too soon now for permanent decisions... but there is a decision point looming over us and I am as scared of losing him as I am that he might actually choose me.

three

I write these stupid little poems for him... I fold them up and drop them on his desk and walk away without saying anything at all. He loves them and I love writing them for him...

I
this tiny part of me
waits with ache for your hands
your lips, your tongue

this small core of pink
presses forward to find the heat of you
flushes dark, growing stronger
by the kiss

this hidden love for you pulses
catching and holding my breath
waiting for release.

II
I want to wake with you
and sketch the story of us
on the soft skin of your belly,
drawing lines between kisses with
my tongue, my hair painting this
scene on your chest as I move.
I want the rain to start
soft around us. I want you to
build my thunder slow.
I want to ride out this storm
sweet in your arms
I want to sleep again to the sound
of the wind, curling around you
like a secret.

III
This carefully concealed love
has stripped me of my senses,
pushed me naked
all the way to need.
Needing you grows solid, pulses
stronger than a heartbeat.
It moves me beyond possibility
beyond sanity and reason
beyond our sensible agreements.
I just want you.
I don't want to breathe until
you kiss me, don't want to sleep
without touching you, don't want
to wake to the days without you.

The Trip

It was actually sort of perfect. In a tragic, heartbreaking sort of way.
I think I was hoping to find some evidence that he is not exactly what I want. I think I was really hoping to be happy to be back home alone.

The first night was our first date... because everything is all out of order in this relationship. We ate Chinese food and walked around the Plaza. I stopped at The Body Shop and he stopped at a bookstore and bought me a book. Seriously. A book. The most amazing first present ever. We went to a movie and walked back to the car. I don't think I've ever had a better first date.
The best part was that he never once got impatient about anything. Not when we didn't know where we were going, not when I wanted to stop at The Body Shop, not when we figured out that we walked three blocks in the wrong direction...
The weather was perfect and he was fun and sweet and it was all just... really good.

And I love him... so much more than I'm supposed to.

The conference was good, and I got to nap in the afternoons and sometimes he napped with me and sometimes I would wake and find him there, just waiting to kiss me. My favorite part was falling asleep with him; talking in the dark and kissing and just loving him until we fell asleep.
His favorite part was how I took care of him in the mornings... he doesn't drink coffee in the mornings, but he does drink chocolate milk every day so I packed a cooler and made sure there was chocolate milk for him and water for me and also strawberries and cheese and crackers and all of the things that you need to survive four days away from home in a hotel with questionable catering skills. While he was showering I would put milk out for him and then brush my teeth and get ready. We were surprisingly compatible. Crazy compatible.

He loved that I had milk ready for him. And I loved that he bought me a book. He loved that I wanted to watch movies with him in the evenings. I loved that we get ready at the same speed in the morning. And we both loved a thousand other little sweet things. That's the thing. The grand gestures are easy, but the small things - the things you don't even think about - are the things that make relationships great.

Driving home Thursday was rough. We were both quiet and didn't talk much at first. Halfway home I felt this panic start. I didn't want to ruin how great everything had been by crying and I didn't want to pretend to be fine when I wasn't. We were listening to the Eels and driving past fields and then he just started to talk. He said he was overwhelmed by how he feels about me and that this relationship took him completely by surprise. He said he was all twisted up and didn't want to go home.

We both cried a little and then we were quiet again. I know that he is not going to leave his wife. I know that he will untwist and be reasonable again and someday I will be in his past.

But now I know what it feels like to fall asleep with him and wake up with him and kiss him every day as long as I want... and I want that back. I want him here. I want him to come home to me at night and I want to take care of him.

Aaaaaaaand back to reality. He does not belong to me. He is not coming home to me. And that is going to break my heart.