I’ve been in love once.  I woke up yesterday and thought of him, googled his name and learned he is in prison.  Its for the best, probably.  Once, we watched the Science of Sleep, but i feel asleep with in the first few minutes with my head in his lap.  

A few years later, after moving away and breaking up I cleaned out my closet and found a blazer I hadn’t worn in years and wondered if it still fit.  Sliding it on I felt it still fit, and upon further inspection I found a DVD, The Science of Sleep.  I possibly remember putting it there, years ago.  Trying to remember exactly, but memories are leaves rustling in a light wind, waiting to get picked up.  I took the DVD out and kept it beside the player for a few weeks.  I’d touch it occasionally.  I was wary to watch it.  

I don’t date much.  I went out to a pride fest one weekend afternoon, essentially alone.  I ran into a friend and he introduced me to his friend, Chet.  We clicked, in a ‘lets have fun right now’ sort of way.  I held his hand during some love speech.  We danced around to drag.  We drank and ran around in the rain with big grins.  I ended up spending the night with him, but not at his place.  It was a 12 hour impromptu date that could’ve been spread out into two weeks.  We kissed and smiled and parted in the morning.  Chet saying he wanted to see me again, me, smiling, playing coy and excited at the same time.  I left and scrapped up all the elation I had acquired and committed it to memory because I realized life had given me a gift the day before. 

 I watched the Science of Sleep sometime between that really fun Saturday and the next.  I enjoyed it a lot.  Its a great movie.  Its so strange, but its a love story about a guy, Stephane, who’s not there, in one way or another.  He falls for his neighbor, Stephanie, who has this odd bunk bed in her studio apartment.  Its made from plywood and doesn’t exactly match anything else in the apartment.  It only has the top bunk, which makes a lot of sense for space in a small place.  I had never seen a set up like it, brushed it off in the movie and thought it was odd.  The movie ends with Stephane saying “can’t you just rub my head or something?”  He falls asleep in Stephanie’s bunk, she crawls in, like the big spoon, and rubs his head, carefully.  

I went out the next Saturday, purposely avoiding contact with Chet, because like many boys (including myself), Chet didn’t call.  Bar hopping and fun stuff with buddies, good times.  But fun fun fun life had another plan.  I walked into Legends and went to the bar.  I distinctly remember laughing about something and then seeing Chet across the bar.  Chet and his pretty long hair.  We talk more, we get along.  We have fun dancing beside each other, we even kiss a few times.  When its time to go, Chet comes with me.  We end up going back to his place, this time, to crash.  He opens the door to his studio apartment and I grin and giggle.  I look up and the first thing I see is a plywood bunk almost identical to the one in the Science of Sleep.  I mumble to myself “can’t you just rub my head or something?”  Chet asks what I said, but I just say something out of a movie.  Still laughing to myself, we smoke and chill to some silly stuff on youtube.  I kissed him on the cheek twice.  He seems like he could be a really fun guy I think as I fall asleep against his arm.  He wakes me to climb into the bunk above us.  We talk a little more and kiss goodnight.  I roll over to be the little spoon but he doesn’t cuddle.  Instead, I feel his hand start to run through my hair and I smile as I fall.