sweetheart

this weekend has been painful and enervating in so many ways. i look like i've been beaten with a tire iron. i'm bruised, sprained, sore and achy. but believe it or not, my heart is as full as it can be. these things all began, as many bad things do, with dollar miller lites and a shot of tequila. with that ever-so-appealing mixture coursing through my body, i went home with my favorite obsession and apparently ravished the hell out of him before... well. we don't need to get into what happened next. anyone who's ever been to college, or seen a movie about college, knows that.

as i lay on the bathroom floor, cursing miller brewing company and jose cuervo, i felt a rolled-up towel being slid gently under my head. a cup of water appeared next to me. my feet moved a little bit, and he sat down on the floor next to me. for the next hour, he talked to me, held my hair back, stroked my back and generally made sure i was alive. when i was hit with a particularly violent reaction, he picked me up and held me. through my misery, i felt his hand rub my back, soothing me through it. when i laid back down, he said, gently and with concern, "oh, sweetheart."

if you read my work, you can see imprints of this man woven through nearly everything i write. he and i have pushed, pulled, confused and delighted one another for so long now. we've been friends, lovers, adversaries and allies through it all. but when he called me sweetheart, he changed the game. this has been a long time coming, but it's here. we're in a different sort of relationship now. there's still no name for what we are, and i don't think there ever will be. but that's okay; we are people who are well used to existing outside the mores and conceptions of society. but now, there's a name for me, and that's all i've ever wanted.

sweetheart.