The Human Condition

You ask me "why," and "how can you be so sure," and I am slow to respond. Not because I’m hunting around in my head for a justifiable reason, but because I have too many reasons from which to choose. Where to even begin?

Shall I start with the big picture – the overall effect? How each time you are near, the involuntary butterflies commence their fluttering in the pit of my stomach? Their fluttering transforms into trembling throughout – from the tips of my fingers to the ends of my toes. And I stumble for words.

Or perhaps I should start with the small things. The hard-to-see-but-impossible-to-miss details (and we all know that the devil lies in the details.) The imperceptible-except-for-the-way-the-hairs-raise-on-the-back-of-my-neck movements when you stand next to me, slowly inching closer, until the book we’re both looking at has become merely a prop: a convenient excuse for standing closer than necessary to one another.

There are those accidental – yet on purpose – moments: I lean in to whisper a joke in your ear, and you lean in to laugh . . . and then neither one of us moves away. Frozen in place and scared to break that connection, yet terrified to complete it. Or what about when we’re sitting next to one another and our hands land in almost the exact same spot, mere millimeters apart? Those hands, which have yet to be so bold as to claim the other one as its own, remain suspended in action, waiting for the moment when they can freely express themselves.

And the looks! Don’t get me started on those hidden glances, stolen out from under a heavy-lidded gaze. When you think that I miss those glances because you think that I think that you’re solely focused on the task in front of you. But no, I still notice. Even if I were blind and couldn’t see them – I would still feel those eyes dart in my direction and . . . linger.

It is an exquisite torture.