I once thought about bringing you home to meet my parents. But that idea seemed half-baked, frivolous, a conundrum when I could pick out the little things they wouldnt like about you.
The pet names—whore; instead of babe—would not go unnoticed. How she smokes cigarettes. And he, smokes weed, has guns that have killed people when others wielded the same name & make of them.
He’d take my mom for a ride in his Shelby. She’d ask to see under the hood. My dad would meander over; having the same love for the car.
They’d make you stay in the guest room or the basement. But couldnt separate you between rooms because of matrimony. Id lay awake trying to devise a plan to enter the same room, same bed, to feel normal again.
Id drive you around my little hometown, pointing at the places ive mysteriously had sex in the back of my Yukon xl. Id show you the places i used to smoke at, concealing the smoke by blowing into a bottle. Slowly easing the smoke out little by little.
Id show you where I got my heart broken last, where I was proposed to, where I got drunk. Id show you my friends that aren’t friends at the bar. Id show you my best friend and her son. Let you into a little bit of my life through experiences.
You’d eat meals with my parents and me. A meat in every dish just like he would want. Just like my dad wants. They’d talk about how you met, you’d talk about how you proposed, id talk about feeling at ease around them. Maybe my mom would pick up the little thought on the breeze that this coupling is more than what they see. She may figure it out and bite her tongue, only to ask me about it later in private.
If my dad knew then I wouldnt be able to see them again. Id lie to travel to them wherever they went. If my dad knew your monogamous marriage was open to me and only me. Would he recognize that something special occurred or would he shame me for cursing their temple with my wrong-doings?
I once thought about bringing you home to meet my parents. But I think everything we have known ourselves to be would only be burned and swept away like the flowing of the tides.
gillian renee 