A Heart Full of Words

New Mexico

We sat in a rented jeep and watched the orange and purple sunset before we went inside the restaurant for dinner. We were holding hands when he said, "I've never met anyone like you before."

He asked me what my favorite day of the week was, and I told him that I loved Saturday, but not the whole day. Specifically, I love Saturday mornings.

"Saturday mornings remind me of coffee and jazz and an ocean breeze," I told him. "One Saturday morning a few years ago, I sipped cinnamon coffee at a cafe in Santa Cruz. I sat on a deck and looked out at the water and felt a breeze while jazz played softly in the background, and that is what Saturday mornings feel like. I know that sounds silly."

He didn't think it was silly. He looked at me with warm loving brown eyes.

He said, "I love you, Todd. I could marry you."

(When you tell people silly things, they're supposed to laugh at you, not say they love you.)

We spent amazing days and nights together in Taos and Santa Fe. We had so much awesome sex - - I want to call it making love, but then you will laugh at me. Or maybe you will say you love me.

We...whatever'ed...in so many positions and in so many places. In the hot tub under the stars, in the bed, in the bathtub, in front of a fireplace...over and over again.

We watched movies in bed and ate Ben & Jerry's. We took long hikes and got lost in the woods for four scary hours until a man rescued us.

He said, "That was an angel."

We went to a spa, and I moved his body gently through the water as he floated in the hot springs. He said I put him in a trance when I moved him across the surface of the steaming hot water.

He said, "You make me tremble."

He said, "I know your soul."

We exchanged rings in a private ceremony attended only by us and the moon and millions of snowflakes.

He said, "I devote myself to you," and he did for a few years. I thought it would be longer.

On my birthday, seven years after devoting himself to me, he said, "I don't love you anymore."

Words are just letters in a string that are supposed to mean something, but do they mean anything?

IknowyoursoulIcouldmarryyouYoumakemetrembleThatwasanangelI'venevermetanyonelikeyou
IdevotemyselftoyouIdevotemyselftoyouIdevotemyselftoyou...

I want to believe in words. I want to believe.

Believing is so scary. Words disappear after they are spoken, yet I store them in my heart for years and years.

Feelings can change, but my feelings seem to take so much longer to change.

And if I can't rely on words or feelings, I just don't know what I am supposed to hold onto sometimes.