The
other day I was sitting around
wasting
time and talking to you,
when
suddenly this girl
we
had never seen before
walked
up to us and started
telling
us about how much her life sucked.
She
talked for fifteen minutes,
then
walked away. We haven't seen her since.
Thinking
you knew her, I asked you,
"Who
was that?" and you said,
"Someone
who needed to talk."
I
spent my summer vacation doing nothing in particular,
took
a trip, sent you a postcard or two.
I
watched, like, seven hours' worth of X-Files per weekend.
It's
not like I had anything better to do.
And
every time I saw David Duchovny,
it
reminded me of you.
Last
night I had the craziest dream:
I
dressed up like Death and came to see you
in
an office building, where you were
spinning
around and around in this chair.
You
were making me dizzy.
I
was supposed to deliver some really morbid warning,
but
instead I just ripped off the mask and said,
"Hey,
how's it going?"
Then
the phone rang, and it was my friend
who
wanted to say hi to you, too.
And
this morning I was telling you about it
when
the same friend walked up behind me
and
hit me over the head. And I said,
"See? I told you so!"
You
spent your weekend in a mental institution,
because
your friend tried to kill himself. Once
you did, too.
So
you drank bad coffee and talked about Star Trek,
and
this schizophrenic woman tried to steal your shoes.
And
every time I see an iceberg or a plum,
it
reminds me of you.
It's
like this psychological experiment
you
were telling me about:
how
a man conditioned a little boy
to
have an unnatural phobia of furry things
and
reallly screwed up the kid's life, you said.
Well,
I think I've conditioned myself
to
be this afraid of loving someone,
and
God, have I ever screwed myself up!
And
now every time you ring a bell
(every
time the phone rings)
it
makes me run off looking for you.
Yesterday
I was talking to you again,
when
suddenly I had this tremendous coughing fit.
It
went on for, like, ten minutes.
So
I sat there with tears streaming down my face,
and
I was going, "Ugh...ugh...ugh..."
and
you said, "Hey, you're not gonna die on me or anything?
'Cause
if you died, I'd get really bored."
And
I said,
"Thanks,
same
to you."
Copyright
(c) 2000 by Beth Kinderman. This is my
original work, so please respect it.
Email me about "Same To
You"