When Will You Kiss Me?

When we are about to go in our two different directions, you to the left and I to the right in a way more symbolic than we had probably intended, I look up at you. There are way too many things to communicate in that slightly-extended glance, but I hope you understand at least a few of them. Yes, I want you, in the more simple ways. I want to feel your hand on the small of my back, your breath against my neck, your lips brushing the side of my ear. But much more than that, I want to know that all of these things I can’t help but feel for you are reciprocal. I want your attention, your priority, your desire. I want to know that I’m not completely crazy, when I so often feel that I am.

I have never liked waiting, but it has never been so painful as it is now. Now, it feels like every second that we are not touching is wasted. Everything is heightened, but so much that I can no longer feel my fingers. It’s as if something pleasurable has become numbing, a massage drawn out too long that makes your muscles feel like putty. Everything hurts, and then you casually put your hand on my shoulder, and all of my pain evaporates. In fact, it’s as though I don’t know what pain is anymore. We are together, and you are taking up every corner of my mind. In those moments, I couldn’t remember my name.

Imagining you in bed is too much — I am overwhelmed with a kind of lust that has nowhere to go, that couldn’t possibly make sense. I have to stop before the bedroom door and imagine the moment where you finally lean into me and let your lips sink into mine. Every time we see each other, even if we barely exchange a word, it’s as though my whole body is calling out for you. “Come to me,” it says, “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for you.” And maybe you don’t. Maybe you are happy going through life oblivious, not acknowledging the girl next to you whose entire sun rises and sets on what you choose to do with the rest of your evening.

You say you’re going to head home, and I follow you almost involuntarily.

Our friends say that you’re into me, that you’re too shy, that you don’t know how to make the first move. They say I should just “go for it.” And normally I would. I have never been the type to let opportunity pass me by completely like this. But there is something in you which renders me incapable of action, incapable of risk, incapable of doing something that might not work out entirely in my favor. I can feel myself falling apart when I am around you, and the only time I am put back together is when your hand brushes against mine when you are walking past me. I know this is pathetic, but I cannot stop myself.

What is holding you back? When will you do it? When will you take that leap that we are both so afraid of jumping — the one which mocks us every time we are in the same room? I know that you feel the way I do. I can see it when you look at me just a few seconds too long, when you talk about me and then quickly shut up when you see that I am walking by. There is a part of you which is screaming for you just as much as I am for you, and they can hear each other. Let’s let them talk. Lean in and kiss me. I am ready.