whatiwas

Her top was little more than a gentle, unobtrusive fabric that flowed effortlessly over my hands as they slid beneath it to touch the skin of her back. I tried not to focus on the fabric, because the touch of her skin--god, if you understand nothing else of this, please recognize this--the touch of her skin to my hands made the present acceptable.

I mention this not because it was an extreme event, meeting her and her friend at the Boiler Room, leaving with them to hit XV and relax while we rapped about the state of the world, offering them a place to stay for the night before they continued their road trip from Sacramento to Vancouver, but simply because it was there and it was nice. There was precious little romance to it, other than the usual sentiment that leaves me enamored with every moment in which I feel in some way desired, and the only things I'm sure I'll remember in the end are her name, and where she was from, and what she was doing in her life, and how it felt to kiss her there, that sexless, featureless space above the suicidal waistline of her jeans.

I woke up next to her three hours later an hour before the alarm went off, both of us fully clothed because it was the only way I could get her to share the bed with me, sweating like a madman and cravenly scared that she had or would see something that would disgust her.

I want to see her again, and yet I probably won't, and so I need to burn her into my memory, starting with that shirt, and her Korean eyes, and her tanned skin and California accent.