by Paul Hina
it in his mind. But there is no articulation. All the letters of all the words drop and scatter into the soup of desire's stupid complexity.
But he does know that this is what hope feels like.
He had forgotten.
"I think I've got a problem," Jacob says, as he shuts the door to David's office.
"That didn't take long. I take it your first class didn't go well."
"She's in the class."
"The girl?"
"The girl."
"No."
"Yes."
"I told you."
"Told me what?"
"I told you that you can't control these things. You can't just decide to keep something like this at arm's length and expect the situation to obey. These things have a way of unfolding however the hell they want."
"What am I going to do?" Jacob asks, falling into the chair by David's desk.
"Have you talked to her?"
"Yeah, just now."
"What? After class?"
"Yeah."
"What'd she say?"
"She said that she's been trying to get into one of my classes for awhile," he says. "Oh, and she said that she loves Imeros."
"Yeah, so what's new about that?"
"What's new is that I cared? Usually, this kind of thing flows over me like water, but this time it stuck. I was flustered by her, flattered by the fact that she had read Imeros," Jacob said, looking at David. "She said she'd like to hear me read."
"She said that?"
"She did."
"Hmm."
"What's that?"
"What's what?"
"You said, 'Hmm.'"
"Nothing," David says, and then he gets up from his desk. "Do you want to go get some coffee? I feel like I need some air."
"OK."
Jacob stands and they leave David's office. The hallways are still busy with students milling around, but David and Jacob traverse the traffic in silence, aiming for the exits. When they get outside, the light is intense, and the heat has really increased since the morning.
"Spring has definitely arrived," Jacob says.
"Are you going to tell me about this girl?"
"I'm not sure that's a good idea."
"Well, what is it about her? How is she so different from all the other girls on campus?"
"I don't know. It's difficult to say. I guess for one thing, I wasn't looking for anyone before, and so I never saw anything. Then, one day last week, I looked and there she was, and everything was suddenly different. Before, I looked at most of the college-aged girls with indifference. They all kind of ran together to me. There were very few students, male or female, that seemed to stand out. But she was unique, more interesting than any student I'd ever met. I was immediately attracted to her, and the attraction wasn't exclusively physical. It was deeper than that. It was like she tapped into some nostalgic mass inside me, broke it open."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, and I hesitate to say this because I know that you'll pounce on it, but she reminded me of Melissa."
"Oh, Jacob. That's not good."
"No. It's definitely not ideal," Jacobs says as they enter the campus coffee shop and grab a spot in line. "And I know how that sounds, but it isn't all about Melissa. This girl is definitely her own individual. So, I don't want to overemphasize the resemblance. But it's just that, well, her hair is just like Melissa's—same color, same length. Her face is peculiar in its familiarity. It's uncanny. She's tall like Melissa, and she moves the way I remember her moving. Like I said, when I first saw her, it was like a window opened up to the past, and, honestly, it was exactly the air I've been needing to breathe."
"See, this is the kind of thing that concerns me. I haven't heard you talk about Melissa in years, and I feel like she's been coming up more and more lately. It sounds to me like you've been digging for her. So, it's not surprising to me that you found her."
"You think this new girl is more about Melissa than it is about discovering something new?"
"Well, Melissa did give you Imeros. It seems like you've been wanting more Imeros in your life. So, why wouldn't you try to bring back Melissa? Besides, from what I can tell, it's always been about the past for you, about opening up inspiration as you remember it. That's what you were saying last week, at least."
"I know, but I only use that period as a reference point for how things can work, the ideal writing time for me. I'm certainly open to something new."
"But you're not." David stops at the counter. "Two medium house blends, please," he says, turning to Jacob. "I got this."
"Why do you do that?"
"What? Buy your coffee?"
"No. Why do you make definitive statements about my frame of mind? How can you say that I'm not open to something new? You don't have any idea what you're talking about."
"But you're already setting limits on what you will or won't let happen with this girl. If you were truly open to her then you would be open, and not draw arbitrary lines in the sand."
"Come on. We all set limits in our interactions with people."
"Yeah, but this comes back to what we talked about this past weekend. If you think you can control these things, then you're deluding yourself." David grabs their coffees from the counter, and they go and grab a couple of chairs by a window.
"So, you don't think I can set limits in a romantic relationship?"
"No, I think you can set limits. I think we can all set limits, just as you said, but will our emotions obey those limitations? I think the more emotionally attached we become to someone, the more those limitations seem to become impediments to our personal growth, arbitrary fences that need torn down. Or, as some one smarter than me once said, 'the heart wants what the heart wants.'"
"You may be right, but I believe that setting limits, and holding firm to those limits, becomes easier when crossing those lines means losing what I would lose."
"I guess," David says, dismissively.
"I couldn't lose Rachael. She's too important to me. None of this is about needing someone to love, someone to fill emotional holes in me. It's all about returning to something I've lost, something that is vitally important to my happiness. If some harmless flirtations will allow me to reawaken the part of myself that I've lost, then I am pleased to have it."
"But how would Rachael feel about these flirtations? Would she see them as harmless?"
"I think so, actually. I think if she knew that nothing was going to happen, and if she believed that it might move me beyond the space I'm in now, then she might understand."
"Jacob, you can't be serious? First you say that it's not about the past, but you also talk about how much this girl reminds you of Melissa. Then you say that all of this is about finding something that you've lost, but that none of this deficit of desire has anything to do with your marriage. And now you're either trying to convince me, or yourself, that Rachael would be fine with you having some pseudo-romantic encounter with some college-aged girl. No matter how benign the encounter turns out to be, it's crazy to believe that Rachael would understand. Crazy."
"No. You don't know Rachael. We've had this conversation..." Jacob stops. David is looking at him skeptically. "At least we've talked about the fact that I've been uninspired and need to find something to move me toward working again. I've told her about my needing something to desire."
"And that doesn't bother her? Doesn't every wife want to be that for her husband? Don't most believe that they are that for their husbands?"
"I'm sure they do, but at a certain point reality has to set in. She knows that my poems are not exclusively about her. She's always known that. She understands how I work. Do I think she would rather I only desire her? Of course. But she's not foolish enough to believe that that's the case. And more important than that is that she trusts me."
"But the question for me isn't whether or not she trusts you, but whether or not—when you're around this girl—you trust yourself?"
On his way home, Jacob
can't help but wonder if he could trust himself to be alone with Joelle. He's not sure it's a question that he can answer honestly. He could say yes, that he can be trusted not to cross any of those lines that might lead to infidelity, but what if the moment were facing him? What if, like earlier, when he first saw her in class, he felt completely overtaken by emotion, completely immersed in that absence of control? He had to admit that, even though David has made sense, and has sounded significant warnings about that same loss of control, he can't help but feel attracted to being guided by desire's hand. He wants to know what that feels like again. Even now, walking up the hill of the street where his house sits, he can feel echoes of that joyful immersion in his gut, and he wants to hold it there, keep it afloat.
He stops walking and takes a seat on a retaining wall that sits right off the sidewalk. He has the briefest inclination to pull out the small notepad that he keeps in his back pocket to jot down some thoughts on this thing he's feeling, this thing that has risen up in him simply from thinking about her again. He's cognizant of something important churning under the surface, and wants to record all his thoughts about Joelle for posterity. He's learned enough to recognize the rarity of these emotional waves.
But he doesn't reach for the notepad.
For right now, the poetry comes second to just experiencing the poet's life again.
This chronic narcissism is precisely the reason why it must be so tiresome for anyone to spend time with a poet. For a poet, the most banal circumstances of daily life can cause that special linguistic switch to flip, and then they become extremely sensitive about all they say. Every word that's uttered can be