Missed Connection

Dear Jon -

So I've been obsessively reading the missed connections on CraigsList. I'm thinking about doing some sort of research, just for myself or otherwise, determining what sorts of missed connection posts get replied to and why and what the replies are. But I think mostly what I've learned is that there are an incredible amount of very vague posts which people seem to misinterpret in incredible ways.

I've always wondered if I've just imagined everything between us. And you haven't done anything to help with that. Every time I would think there was nothing there, you gave me some sort of hope. I remember the night I confronted you about it, outside the pub smoking. You led me on, only to tell me an hour later there was nothing. Approach, retreat, approach, retreat.

You weren't at work yesterday. I didn't see you at school today. Where are you?

I miss you, Jon. I have started fantasizing about seeing you and having all revealed. The fantasy:

I show up to school, running late as usual, and you are there standing outside the building. When you see me approaching, you come to me in the parking lot and grab my arm.

I look at you with heart pounding and tell you I'm late for class.

You ask me to come with you. Your face is full of dark intensity, sincerity, insecurity. You narrow your eyes when you look at me, then tighten your mouth and look away.

I say yes.

We go to your car, I throw my briefcase and keys in the back, awkwardly move a pack of cigarettes and garbage from the cup holder to have a place to put my coffee mug where it won't spill.

You roll down your window, put a cigarette in your mouth, offer me one. You move slowly, deliberately, with an awkward grace. I say no. You light and drive, being careful not to meet my eyes when you look behind you as you pull out of the parking spot.

You turn on the stereo and skip ahead in songs until Broadripple comes on. My chest tightens and I screw up my face, hanging my head and saying softly, begging, "Not this, Jon." I straighten, determined, and reach for the skip button only to have you stop my hand with yours. "No, Marie, just..." You pause, frustrated and tentative and afraid. And you start to sing. I sit back and close my eyes, feeling the wind in my hair from your open window, letting the sound of your voice sink into me.

We pull into your driveway before the song is over. We sit, as you sing to the end. You turn the car off and there's silence. It seems like forever, but it's only a few moments. The air is tight and thick. We're both holding our breath.

You turn to me, eyes slow-lidded. "Would you like to come in?" you ask. I'm searching your face, looking into the sparkling fear and anticipation there.

"Alright," I say.

We get out of the car and walk up to the door. You unlock it, open it, motion for me to step in. The smell of old pot smoke and incense hits me. It's dark, sparsely furnished, browns and blacks in the furniture with dark woods. Your little cat runs up to me, mewing, and I kneel down to pet him. I'm terrified, and the cat is a welcome distraction.

I know what happens next, in the fantasy, but it's still too fresh and frightening to write down. As I write this, it becomes more real. My imagination is so vivid, coupled with the emotion you've always instilled in me... The fantasy is innocent, you know. It plays in my mind with the tortured language of unrequited love and longing, but it's not about flesh or blood or carnality. Maybe I'm too much of a coward to imagine you and I that way, or maybe you've always been so sensual to me. Something happens when I'm with you and all of my senses are heightened and narrowed to focus solely on you. Being with you is what art feels like. I wrote a song for you, do you remember?

My husband will be home, soon, and so I'm going to go play my guitar for a little while to get it out of my system. I feel like everybody can see that I'm blown apart over you. I want to endeavot to put most of me back together for him.

Go to school tomorrow. Stop me on my way in and ask me to come with you. Or, if not that, look at me, brush past me, and smile sarcastically. I long to exist for you. I long to touch you.

- M.

Graceland

Dear Jon,

I went ahead and posted the missed connection on CraigsList. I was eloquent and angry and damning and everything I wanted to be in the post, and yet I'm still unsatisfied. Worse than that, I'm terrified you've found it! Today at work when you walked in, my heart leapt into my throat. When you asked if I wanted a cigarette, I thought for certain it was a trick to get me alone and confront me about it. And then, as we smoked, I tried to keep the conversation light, to act so nonchalant, but my heart was pounding. I was flushed, did you notice? We finished our cigarettes and stood there, talking, and then I asked if you were ready. You paused, lowered your eyes. Resigned, you said, "Yeah, I'm ready." Maybe you did find it.

Later in the afternoon, looking for music with expression, and you suggested Casiotone's version of Graceland. You recited the lyrics:

She'll say losing love
is like a window in your heart,
'cause everybody sees
you're blow apart

I couldn't breathe, and changed the subject. It was so poignant and I felt so caught off guard.

You see, the point of this - me, writing here, for you, who'll never read it - is that it's not enough. The week before I got married and I begged you to be my reason not to and you told me we never had anything to begin with - it wasn't enough. The late night txting, the broken and lonely nights spent looking at your Facebook profile pictures... Fuck, Jon, I sound batshit crazy over you, and maybe I am. Maybe I am. The missed connection wasn't enough, whether you read it or not. This blog won't even be enough, but at least it's ongoing. It'll be a place for me to fucking shout into the ether instead of over my guitar or into a half empty glass of rum and diet coke.

I'm tired and I won't sleep. Instead I listen to Broad Ripple, over and over again, the first song you sang - I can't say to me and I won't say at me - while I was there. And now I'm so bitter over it. Because it's about your ex-wife. It's for your ex-wife. You loved her and she left and now you're broken and you're a sulking coward. I saw so much more in you, but I don't even know if it was real.

Oh, Jon. Tomorrow morning is the team meeting where I'll sit in the same room with you for two or three hours and try desperately not to glance in your direction.

I miss you so much, and I never had you.

Will we smoke together after the meeting? We'll sneak out behind the building so I can watch you shiver over your cigarette and you'll tell me how different we are and I will desperately try not to let on how scared and alone and desperate I feel. Jon. Jon. Jon.

Batshit crazy, yes.

Graceland lyrics:

She comes back to tell me she's gone,
as if I didn't notice
as if I didn't know my own bed,
as if I'd never noticed
the way she brushed her hair from her forehead...

I did come back to tell you that I am gone. Isn't that what the missed connection was about? But the worst part, the part that keeps me up like this in tears and keeps those fucking songs (Broad Ripple, Broad Ripple, Broad Ripple) in my ears and in my head, the part I wish so desperately that I could tear out, is the hope. I am gone. I'm married. And so why, why, why am I so wounded with these gashes of longing for you?

I hate myself for that hope. I never want to be unfaithful to my husband. And yet I don't know what I'll do when the year is over and there are no more meetings for me to suffer through with a crick in my neck from turning my head away from your side of the room. Jon, please leave forever and never come back. Jon, please, please, please don't go.

It's almost one. I'll see you in eight hours. But for now, a cigarette and some sleep.

It's raining, tonight. When we stand together under the eve behind the building, I forget the rest of the world exists behind the blanket of rain around us. I see only you.

I won't dream of you. I never do.

- M.