Anodyne.

I won’t let you reduce me to an attraction. It was easy and it was safe for me to agree with you, but that’s not all that I am - not to you and not to anyone else. I am attractive, yes, but that is not who I am. I have a lot inside of me: prayers and visions and secrets and abilities and words. So many words. And to call me incredible would be to insult me. You decided on an attraction to me because that was safer for you. It was safer for you to stop at the door of my thighs than it was for you to cross the threshold into my heart, into my mind. Safer for you to take me in from a distance, more comfortable for you to not ask me what I’m thinking about more than once. You asked me what I was thinking once. You asked me about my weekend. Asked me why I stayed in my head so much. And I answered those questions with enthusiasm because you were on your way to me. You were almost there, and I was so excited about your proximity. I answered those questions as honestly as I could, and I told you with no seatbelts. I wasn’t thinking about anything. I read a lot of books that weekend. I stay in my head a lot because I think of the child that I never had and I’m wondering how soon those who claim to love me will get annoyed by me and leave. I was honest with you, and you loved it. I watched you drink it all in. I watched your eyebrows touch heaven and then come back down quickly when I said words that didn’t make sense to you… and then I quickly found a synonym. I watched you, I could see it. And when you saw it, because you were the last one to see it, you fell back to an attraction. You noticed my body change, and my face change, over the year. And it was safer. You watched my hair grow; you noticed my outfits, my jewelry. Less distracted. You noticed my interaction with people change, you witnessed my faith tenderly. I was probably too young for you. And somehow, in your mind, it made sense for you to tell yourself that an attraction to me was all it took for you to notice every minute detail about me. The way my expressions betray my thoughts. The way my face changes instantly whenever I’m ruminating. When I’m favoring one leg over the other. My favorite song. Just an attraction, you know.

At any rate, you’re with her now. An attraction between the both of you. Sure. History between the two of you. A cute couple. A safe couple. A couple that makes sense. A vision that everyone had now comes true with the two of you, and oh, how the future of the children are in such great hands - four hands now! - with the two of you joining together, in romance and in faith and in attraction. All is right now. It makes sense to you now. It just feels right, you know? She always answers your questions. You never have to ask her what she’s thinking. She always tells you what she does on the weekends. She’s never in her head. You breathe a sigh of relief. She doesn’t have layers - thank God - that you have to work through to get to her soul. She was yours before you even knew her. Now you have someone who you can coach on the proper deadlift form and breathing regulation. Finally someone who will shut up and won’t talk back to you. Finally someone who you know more than! You’ve been waiting for this since you met me: someone who won’t correct you. Someone who lets you perform in the ways that make you feel like you’ve outrun your 23-year-old self even though you haven’t. You’ve finally met her. You breathe another sigh of relief. Her womb is probably untouched. She has never experienced the pain of losing a child and cannot share that with you, so she tells you she’s been waiting on you since the day she met you. And that makes you feel good. It makes you feel right. It makes you feel like a dad again. This is the one you’ve been waiting on since you met me. She looks at you like everything she’s ever wanted is in your eyes, and you look at me afterwards. She sends you an emoji and tells you that she’s been waiting on this moment for four years, and you reach for my arm like it’s the last piece of virgin territory between you and satiation. The adoration from her comes without fanfare: it is easy and delightful. She tells you that you’re a good man everyday. You look for me in all of her sentences.

Ah, yes. An attraction. Webster calls it a quality or feature that evokes desire and interest. Banal. Dermal. Not a big deal. Legs. Lips. Hair. Eyes. The skin on an ankle. Things found everywhere and on every body, including hers. I found this attraction everywhere on you: my lips on your eyes, my legs in your smile. My anklet on every vetoed text message, my wild hair at the tip of every excuse authored by you. An attraction shallow enough to make you find me in an arena of 5,000 people, an attraction slightful enough to make you run through fields of rationale and reasons at 16 miles per hour, an attraction minor enough to keep you at the end of my eyesight every time you tell yourself you won’t be there but you show up anyway. A slight appeal. A diversion.  If Webster consulted you, he would think he had it wrong all this time.