abigail gets unlost

they were in a bookstore, in the far back corner, in the children's section. she was sitting on a tiny red stool and he was laying on his stomach in front of her. they were in the same clothes they wore yesterday, because they had just found each other again after a year of being apart, after a year of waiting, and they had gone to dancer's cabin in muir woods the night before. dancer worked at spec's, which is where he had worked once, and they had gone there last night and he drew on a matchbook for her, and dancer said why dont you guys just go stay at my place.

she had been searching for him in other people. the boy who sat next to her in contemporary literature- he had his shoes and she would stare at them and pretend they were attached to him, the only him who mattered. there was another boy who looked nothing like him really but had the same facial shape, making her ache from her fingers to her toes, making her crawl inside of herself for a minute and remember.

oh, there had been other boys. she had kissed them and they had loved her and she listened patiently to their ideas about films and projects. and she helped them, and gave them ideas, and when she asked them to read her stuff they promised they would, and sometimes she believed them and sometimes she didnt. but it didnt matter much to her because she knew he would come back one day, and she knew that even if he never read a single thing she wrote, he read it all, because he got it all without her having to explain. he used tell her that she was the most beautiful word-creater there was, that she was the best sentence-maker that ever had been, just because of things she said and letters she wrote to him. and he would beg her for more.

she picked up a children's book and began to read it to him. it was about a little girl in england.

last night they sat on dancers couch and he talked about the time he got married, and how it really wasnt him, how he had never felt so detached. he was marrying her because he loved her and wanted to make her happy, and the only thing that would was being his wife. but he didnt love her the way she loved him

the little girl goes on an adventure.

they were leaning up against opposite arms of the couch. their feet were touching. he talked and she listened, but it wasnt like listening with the rest of them, because he was listening to her listening, and no one had ever done that for her before.

the little girl gets lost in hyde park.

they laid on dancers bed and they kissed. their bodies were books on a shelf, perfectly lined up in every way. he looked at her and he couldnt believe it- he had never felt such unrestrained glee before in his entire life. he was in love, he was so devastatingly in love with her, it could all end then and it would have exceeded most people's entire lives of love after love. that one moment of the profile of her face, her eyes closed like fat half moons, wasnt something anyone, he thought then, could ever understand. even if they thought they did, they didnt.

its cold in hyde park. shes wearing a toggle coat.

thats what she thought love was- being totally arrogant about your own love, thinking that it is one of The Great Love Stories Of All Time. people who arent hyperbolic like that arent in love. love is exaggeration, love is untethered and nonsensical.

he scooted up towards her and held onto her ankles as she read the story aloud. "Abigail walked up to a man and a woman, sitting on a park bench. It was beginning to get dark outside." he wrapped his arms around her calves. he couldnt ever get close enough to her. he said to her once, before they lost each other, that he wanted to be a puppet inside of her, he wanted to move the way she moved, he wanted to be inseparable, sewn to her. "Abigail did not know what to say. She was very cold, and very lost." he pulled himself up so that he was kneeling on the ground and his head was in her lap. she had never had someone understand her this way. every way he touched her meant something that never needed to be articulated. the thought of him made her shiver. "The man on the park bench said 'little girl, you look lost'" the book got flattened between the two of them as he sat on her lap facing her and wrapped his arms around her body.

i feel like i know all your words.

i feel like you do too.

i feel like you are every story and every sentence.

you are my every sentence.

his hands were in her hair. she could barely move; she felt like her body was going numb from the scalp down, she felt like a candle becoming completley warm, completley malleable. his hands were moving all over her back and her arms. she was paralyzed by him. he was sinking into her, unable to find the floor of her, just sinking further and further.

he found all her words, and all her stories, and all her sentences, and he opened her up page by delicate fragile page, and read every bit.