On being a not-muse

I wrote this a very long time ago. Today is the day I want to share it.

Date an intelligent boy and you will know that he does not think about you. He is curious and he is fearless and he wants to create the whole world. Date an intelligent boy and you will know that he thinks of many things: lost Mayan ruins, astrophysics, his dog. You will know that he has the eloquence, the articulacy, to think madly dashed, honest sonnets about you, but that he cannot stop at you. You are Bancroft, Nebraska and he hurtling full speed to Antarctica.

Date an boy with depth and you will think of him. You will think of him and think his imaginary thoughts about you. You will look him up like a dictionary during a Scrabble game, you will need him to tell you what you are because you have forgotten—did you ever know?— and he knows the answer. And you will toss and turn and despair, and you will write bad poetry rich with feelings that make you wince and you will wonder why you can’t be so embedded in his head, his blood, his DNA so that he has no choice but to give you just a little bit. 

Date a boy who knows, who has a hunger to know more, and sometimes you will feel terribly alone. Because he will have the entire world around him, a map that overflows the coffee table, and even when he is with you, right next to you, so close you could kiss his eyelids, he’s not really there. 

But one day. One day he will show you something. It will be muddled and it will be inept and it will be human and he will show it to you: only you. And suddenly he will be easy and you will love him. Because he made it easy, because his brain didn’t run to find every secret under every rock, and because… because you just do, you do love him, so hopefully.