In the Grip

How do they find out that my life is total chaos? Who sends them swooping in from the blue to pick me up and shake me and make me feel strange and unsettled and nervous and happy all at once?

I am busy picking up the pieces and moving on in a new place and the last thing I need is to be getting that look from across the room. You know the one, where they look at you then see you looking then look away and look back when they think you won't see them but you do. And this goes on for a while until one of you goes up to the other and stares at the floor, looks at anything but that person who sees right through you who is standing right in front of you consuming you with his eyes.

You feel this tension, it is real and it is palpable and it is scary. You have connected and it is thrilling and terrifying because you no longer have any secrets. You are open and vulnerable and your insides are visible like one of those anatomy class models from grade school. You are angry and sad and hot and cold and shy and overbearing -- and you are frightened of how intense it all has become so fast from nowhere.

I don't need this now, I don't want it and didn't ask for it and it came and landed on my shoulder not like a butterfly but like a vulture with desperate, clingy claws that will not let go.