To You - AmO: Life Beauty Without Limits... - AmO: Life Beauty Without Limits...

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"Liberty is obedience to the law which one has laid down for oneself."

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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To You

When I was five, I didn’t know much about you. Except that maybe you liked to hop and pretend that you were a kangaroo. And that it would be nice if you had a pouch. And even nicer if you had two pouches. Because then I could put my crayons in one pouch. And my notebook in the other one.

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When I was eight, I met you for the first time. You had big brown eyes and erratic black hair. And I had no idea that you were so beautiful. Until you did an oral book report on The Headless Horseman. And danced around the classroom pretending that you didn’t have a head. After that, I blackmailed Mrs. Hanson so that I could sit next to you for the rest of the year.

But though I sat three feet from you, I couldn’t bear to ask you out. And didn’t for another three years. When I met you again during rehearsals for A Mid Summer Night’s Dream. I was Puck and you were a scampering fairy girl. And I loved to watch you scamper. Which is how I knew that you were the one. So I told you. And you said that you were dating Tank. Who was the school drug dealer. And who punched me in the head the next day. And told me not to talk to you again. Which I didn’t do until I was thirteen. And you were the most beautiful girl in school. And didn’t mind being best friends with the kid everyone called Dinky. And one day you asked if you could kiss me. And of course I said yes.

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Everything about that kiss was beautiful. Except that it was in an alley. And a maid watched us from a window the whole time. Which didn’t seem to bother you. Because you let me feel your breasts over your shirt. And you said that you wanted to go steady with me.

Which lasted two weeks. Until David told you that I said you were a bad kisser. Which was crazy. But you believed him and broke up with me. And started dating him the next week. Which hurt pretty badly at the time. But three years later the dull aching pain had mostly subsided. And I met you again on a park bench.

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Where our friends had arranged for us to kiss. But I was nervous. And told you stories about my grandfather in the war. Until you leaned over and kissed me. And you broke our lip-grip to say, “I figured you’d never actually do it.” And I told you that I figured I wouldn’t either so I was glad that you did.

I gave you a thousand kisses that night. And you asked me to promise that we’d be together forever. Which I promised. And forever lasted seven and a half weeks. Until I met you again in an Internet chat room. Even though my father said that it wasn’t even you. Which I knew was crazy. Because nobody makes happy-face emoticons like you do.

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We met in person four months later. And you thought it was strange that I kissed with my eyes open. And I thought it was strange that you were four inches taller than me. And we both thought it was strange that we were kissing someone we found in a chat room. And we didn’t talk to each other again after that. Which was fine because you soon turned into an erudite French political science major.

Then a fiery (yet still alluring) German linguist. Then an ethereal Brooklyn blond. Then a super-hot Philippine structural engineer. Until it got too confusing. Searching for you is fine. And finding you is fine too. But exploring you is so much better. And exploration requires that you don’t change physical forms so often.

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Which you stopped doing when I was twenty and you reappeared as a Lebanese-American writer. Which was nice because I like Lebanese food. And I like to write too. And it was even nicer because you preferred white, cotton underwear. Which is rare today. And one of the reasons I wrote you a song entitled Bip Bop Banana Hey Girl I Got Something Cotton to Say.

In which I said that I loved you. Then you said that you loved me too. And we had a great big love fest for a few months. Until you told me: “The hyperboles in my head are different from the hyperboles in your head. Go read Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse and you’ll understand.” So I read Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse. And didn’t understand.

But I didn’t get too hung up. Because I soon forgot about you. After I met you again. And so on and so forth. For another five years…

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Until today. When I noticed that I know so little about you. I don’t know where you are. Or who you are. Or even what you look like. All I really know is that it would be nice if you had a pouch. And even nicer if you had two pouches. Because then I could put my crayons in one pouch. And my notebook in the other one.