Charity Janisse

You seemed like someone who would be fun to travel with. When I first met you and saw your eyes, I lost myself for a second, slid sideways to some other dimension, some other life or time. I remembered rolling over on a thin blanket under the trees, stars barely showing through nearly naked fall branches, there was a chill in the air but you warmed me when you put your hand on my waist and I smiled, grabbed your lips with my lips. How my mind wanders and sometimes slips to places I’ve never actually been, with people I have not seen or known. I closed my eyes for a second and opened them again to remember where I was and when. I looked at your mouth as we spoke and tried to drag my eyes away, but I swear I was there under the sky at night with you for a minute and then back to the present… again. When you told me your name for the first time, your voice was rich and so damn beautiful, your confidence that had seemed hidden till that minute was strong in the utterance of that one word. I think it was then, the moment that I fell for you. You took me on a trip through conversation that night, we visited distant places, you took me to galleries, back and forwards in time and I tried to look directly at you and pretend that I did not remember a time, when some one like you was something like mine.

Most of the time, and I must apologize for this, when someone is talking to me and telling me their stories, a stranger some place and I can’t politely get away, I want to. I want to be anywhere but there, listening to some random person’s life, I want to run, to travel, to be alone and so distant, distant and unknown. But you, you told me your stories and I wanted to go far away from the life I knew that day, and take you with me. I wanted to take you with me. I loved those eyes, they seemed like the type that would be nice to meet across a table in a diner as I look up from my coffee, some where just off the freeway in the middle of the night. You seemed like someone that would be nice to drive with through the night, listening to music and talking about random shit until I’d fall asleep, on the middle front seat in an old car with your arm around me. I’d wake up with my head in your lap, your hand in my hair a finger tip caressing my forehead without you hardly noticing the way you’re gently touching me. And I’d roll onto my back, with my head still in your lap and smile up at you. You’d glance down quickly, take your eyes off the road just long enough to smile good morning, ask me if I’m hungry… I’d say I’m sorry I crashed, you would  laugh and touch my cheek. We’d stop for pancakes and make believe that we have some clue where we’re headed, but if we actually knew… then we’d dread it. From what I could remember in this life and that other we both loved exploring, ending up new places that we never meant to go, learning things we did not know.

I liked your hands, they seemed the kind that it would be nice to reach for across that breakfast table, as we sit and laugh together over some shitty old song on the radio, look out the window together, down at a busy city street, people watch and drink more coffee than we intended.

Yah you seemed the kind of person that would be good to travel with, and as I prefer to travel alone, this is saying a lot. And since the road is my only real home, to invite some one along with me is like giving out an apartment key.

But you, well you didn’t remember me… and I suppose there is a chance perhaps I had you mixed up with someone else that night. Either way It’s always nice to be reminded of my favorite lover from another life.

Oh god my mind does wander and one of these days I’ll meet someone who’s mind does wander as wickedly as mine and he’ll remember we were mad lovers in another time and he’ll travel with me, give me a place to lay my head, while we drive all night, touching my face as I wake, never hesitate to fall, to call, he won’t forget me so easily, in fact he’ll never forget me at all.

But it was nice of you to remind me, that once I lay happily under the trees, with someone who could not take his hands or his eyes off of me.

Charity