Missed Connections

The following originally appeared on the Boston Craigslist Missed Connection board.

1. You told me your two names, and you told me how much you like the E in your first name, and I told you that that E is silent, but the E in your second name is quite pronounced, and you told me you like the word pronounced, and I told you that I liked you liking the word pronounced, and you blushed and ask me to take you home. You’d been an orphan until you were not an orphan, and there was a garden, a secret garden, and you asked me if I could keep a secret, and I told you I would keep as many secrets as you wanted to share with me, and you leaned into my ear and told me you weren’t wearing any underwear. Maybe you told me you weren’t wearing any underwear to shock me, or maybe to titillate me, and telling me you weren’t wearing any underwear did both, but I most liked your telling me that you liked not wearing underwear with this specific dress because it has puffed sleeves. How pronounced, these sleeves, you said, using this most-loved word, and I thought that this word would become our word. Some lovers have songs, but we would have words: pronounced, garden, secret. In these words would be our story, not of Green Gables, because I’ve never understood how a gable could be green, but of discovery and loss and family.

2. We will steal from the right and give to the poor, or, not give to the poor, but give to each other, because that’s what lovers do after stealing from the rich. We will laugh in the faces of kings and consort with friars and maidens, and you will let one maiden turn your head, but I will remind you – gently, always gently – that you belonged to another, as much as one person can belong to another. And you will laugh that rougish laugh of yours and you will call me the only merryman you need.

3. Come not grow up with me, you told me, and I told you that I was already grown up, as grown up as I planned to get, and you told me that everyone gets older, and no one stays young, except for you, and if I would hold your hand and close my eyes and think of England, you could make sure that I never grew older. The idea of not growing any older appealed, much like a chocolate-frosted cake at the bakery appeals – the idea surpasses the reality – because who wants to eat an entire chocolate-frosted cake alone, and who wants to not grow old alone, and no matter how much you promised that we would not grow old together, I knew, in time, you would leave me for a girl and her brothers, and you would not let me help beat your ex-boyfriend, Hook – what kind of name is Hook? – and I would be left behind, with the faeries, always the fucking faeries, waiting for someone to clap and give me my wings.

4. Alice, sweet Alice. How I’ve longed for you, if only to share stories of rabbit holes and white rabbits and mad-as-hell tea parties. Why couldn’t you have shouted up that hole that you had fallen and couldn’t get back out? Why drink the drink me and eat the eat me and grow large and shrink small – unnecessary words, large and small, and yet we use them, making these words necessary – and why take that yellow key and slip it inside your dress and use it to get you through Wonderland. And why the hell couldn’t you have left the rose painter playing cards alone and left the tarts alone and certainly left that caterpillar alone? Weren’t you taught to beware men with pipes, offering you a taste, or, if you’d rather, their exhale, letting you breathe them in, becoming them in the process? Why are you standing so close? Today is not my birthday, and I will not sing about twinkling stars, and I will not stand with you in front of a mirror, daring you to jump, because who can jump inside a mirror, and, if you can jump inside a mirror – and I am not agreeing with you that you can – but if you can jump inside a mirror, why do so if all you can do is play chess? I hate chess. I’ve never quite understood why some pieces can go only forward and some pieces can go only two up and one sideways, or two sideways and one up, and why is the queen so big? Women are supposed to be dainty and prim, much like you Alice, sweet Alice.

5. Your wife was the madwoman in the attic, and sometimes I wish she had stayed locked away, counting minutes, and hours, and days, whispering to corners and dancing with dust. Had she stayed in the attic, a flower, wilting, wilted, then I would have gone from Miss to Mrs. I never would have known the sound a body makes when it is lighting fires. Because now I have been set on fire, and you cannot put out my fire because you have been set on fire, and I know the sound a body makes when it is on fire because my body makes the sound a body makes when it is on fire. Your wife was the madwoman in the attic, and sometimes I wish you had told me about your wife, who was the madwoman in the attic, before I decided that all I wanted most in the world was to be your wife.

6. There are four of you, and I cannot pick just one of you, so I will offer myself to each of you. We will live in clapboard houses, side by side by side by side. And these houses will have one large backyard, connected by unlocked fences and unlatched gates. Each of you will get a night, and I will get three nights, because I will need to three nights, to recharge, to run for public office, to run my Home Depot knock-off chain of home goods stores. There are four of you, and I cannot pick just one of you, so I’m hoping one of you, as there are four of you, will see this and remember.

7. You told me you like black men, and I told you that I am not black, and you told me that my not being black is OK, because you ran away with the last black man you liked, and look how well that turned out.

8. I am not into animals, not in that way. I am allergic to cats, and dogs have fleas, and dogs do not clean up after they use the bathroom, and they will use the bathroom wherever they want, and there is no toilet-training cats and dogs, because they are animals and I am not into animals. What? A toad is your best friend. Who the hell picks a toad as a best friend? I mean, I’ve dated toads, but only to kiss them and see if they are princes in disguises, and these toads are never princes in disguise, and I am tired of my sisters getting the good toads.

9. I want to believe in magic and ever afters and keys that unlock the right doors and keys that unlock the wrong doors and wearing keys that unlocked bedroom doors but I cannot believe in keys that unlock the right doors and keys that unlock the wrong doors and wearing keys that unlocked bedroom doors because every key words differently and the key you’re offering, in a box labeled wear me of all things, looks like it will turn my skin green, and green, unfortunately, has never been my color. So lock yourself away inside those shrubs, and turn right, then left, then left again, then right, and maybe you will come to the place you’ve been seeking, for this place is much-sought. Sometimes I seek this place, because I have nothing better to do than to seek this place. And maybe, just maybe, I will lock myself inside those shrubs, and turn right, then left, then left again, then right, and maybe you will come to the place you’ve been seeking, and you will be there, for you will have found the place you’ve been seeking. You will look at me, and I will look at you, and you will say it’s about time that I reached you.