Togethernesses

I like it when we’re together.
I like seeing you.
When I can’t see you because we’re not together,
it doesn’t mean I like you any less.
At least, that’s what I keep telling myself,
and I hope that you agree.

We keep saying
we should spend more time together.
But where are you and where am I?
Do we even have any time to spend?
I have time and you have time—
sometimes our times even overlap.

But time is not the only problem.
Sometimes, when I’m alone
in the middle of the day
and I don’t have anything else to do,
I wonder where you are
and what you’re doing.

I wonder whom you’re with.
I wonder if these are things I would still be wondering
if we were closer.
I wonder what I would wonder
if knowing the answers to questions were possible.
I wonder what I would ask you
if knowing the answers would make any difference.

I want you.
It makes you sound like an item on a Christmas list:
A book about goblins,
A game about nuclear fallout,
You,
maybe a decent paring knife for the kitchen,
And of course, Santa, please do take care of those student loans.

But what do I really mean when I say
that I want you?
What do I want from you?
What do I want for you?
What do I want for us, once we’re together?
What would being
together
mean?

Do you ever wonder about me?
Do you ever wonder who I’m meeting at work?
Who I’m talking to at church, or at meetings?
Do you ever wonder whom I see when I’m out on the town,
or whether I ever even really go out to town?
What are the things that you wonder, and why?
Do you ever get jealous?
Is that why I’m asking these questions?
Do you wonder because you don’t want me seeing anyone else,
or do you wonder because you do?

I’m worried about us.
I want to be together, but how can we ever be together
if we’re so far apart that being together
means being alone?
There are other ways, we tell each other, of being together,
as we speak to each other,
each still struck by lightning,
over the miracle of electronic cloud talk.

But I don’t just want to whisper in your ear, gij lieveling,
I want to feel and touch.
We can pretend that kissing and stroking and nuzzling with words
is some substitute,
but it isn’t.

I love you.
I love you. I do.
But you’re so far away, and I don’t know how to reach you.
You’re so far away that it’s hard to see how this could possibly qualify
as “together”.
I just don’t know what else to call us.