On a Lighter Note

Often my love is defined by how comfortable I can be around a person, how far I can go to make myself look like a fool and still feel amorous. I'm sure I had embaressed myself plenty, as my proclivity lends it, but it was right around the time that spring where at night I would find reasons to walk by your open door while you were sleeping that I remember accidently burning my hair.

It was just the two of us, not yet sharing the same couch, though social borders were breaking down, the wall between affection was stolid. We went to bed, but never slept. We touched, but never kissed. Some silly rules that had been defined by the retisence of two people who could have solved everything by just saying how they felt.

I have a hard time looking smooth when working with grill lighters. It's just something I have never gotten a hold of, the pushing and clicking of so many buttons at once, the pressure on my tiny fingers, it's ridiculous.  I want to say that I even made sure it was on the minus setting as I bent over to light what had come to be the casual start of our evenings together, but Im not sure. The room was dark and you must have had a show watching a good inch of hair on either side of my face burst into flames and sizzle up with the crackle of a summer sparkler. There was a moment where I wondered if I was still there, sitting before you in a noisome smoke cloud, trying desperately not to fall in love. Then I finished what I started and laughed while opening a window.  The smell of burnt hair is the most tangible of all odors. I could draw it, sculpt it out of clay, make it a mexican dish and throw it in trash.

Nothing more of that night was much different than those before it.  We teased until it was too much and I followed you back to your portion of the life we shared as friends. But there was a moment before I snuck back to my room when you brushed what was left of my crispy curls out of my face and kissed my forehead.