Nights

Nights I dreamed so hard I tore the sheets off the bed.

Nights I looked at the clock and waited for the dinner to be over.

Nights I spent online shopping for the perfect pair of knee-high boots.

Nights I spent listening to the Disintegration album and writing made-up Sassy magazine interviews with my future rich and famous self.

Nights I spent freezing in a sleeping bag, recalling (again) everything I hate about camping.

Nights I had dance-offs in the gay bars wearing my very cutest top and my very messiest hair.

Nights the thing between us clicked and bent and folded until it was small enough to take up no space at all and we could easily reach across it and finally, finally kiss.

Nights I walked around the island and sneaked into the under-construction mansions and balanced across what would be the bathroom ceiling in a few months time.

Nights we got ready to go out, checking bra straps, lending hair goop, speculating about who else we might see out, giving honest feedback about the realistic nature or lack thereof of each others’ shoe choices.

Nights I stretched and rubbed my eyes and turned off the computer and decided no more studying until tomorrow.

Nights she said something that opened my eyes, opened my heart.

Nights I spent waiting by the phone, when waiting by the phone was still something you could do.

Nights we lay around in our pajamas and ate pizza and Twizzlers and talked about all the boys we knew, and whether any of those boys liked any of us, and whether any of us liked any of those boys.

Nights when I sobbed, sobbed, sobbed.

Nights I went from dinner to a show to another show to drinks to someone’s house to someone else’s house, gaining and losing friends along the way, creating in-jokes, wondering how it was we were all so witty and bright and beautiful and happened to know each other, out of all the people there potentially are to know.

Nights I put away the pots and pans, loaded the dishwasher, put the milk back in the fridge, wiped down the counter, turned off the lights, brushed my teeth, washed my face, went to bed.

Nights I woke up in his arms, and in his arms, and in his arms.

Nights when I got my shimmy just right, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three.

Nights I walked out under the sky and the stars, in cities and countries and continents all over the small small world.

Nights I watched everything by every comedian I ever laughed at on YouTube.

Nights I said I love you, I love you, it’s crazy but I love you.

Nights I played Rock Band and pretended like I was some sort of superstar.

Nights I cut up magazines and made posterboard collages for my friends’ sixteenth birthdays.

Nights we drove down the tiny two-lane road, dodging actual tumbleweeds, putting the radio as loud as it would go.

Nights I lay awake, not used to sharing a bed.

Nights we all made dinner and then watched a bad movie just so we could yell at it and cuddled and flirted and told all the same old stories and gave compliments and ate ice cream.

Nights I received the silent treatment.

Nights I drank tea and read online comics and arranged my earrings and wrote down lists of all the excellent outfits I will probably never wear.

Nights I started writing a blog entry in my head on the bus on the way home, frantically digging around in my bag for a pen and a piece of paper so I wouldn’t forget, almost dropping my keys down through the gap in the boards of the front porch, stopping only to take off my shoes in the rush to get to the laptop, to write it all down, quick, quick, hurry, go, to remember everything, all the nights.