Winds (and sometimes I rant to make sense of things.)

i.
I'm drawing on my hands again.

Mary Poppins always said she would stay until the winds changed and when I was young, wide-eyed and clutching my patchwork lamb I always wondered how she knew when that was. It simply didn't make sense, because the winds changed all the time. Sometimes the trees outside my imaginary window seat bent to sweep the moss with their creaking knuckles and sometimes they stood stagnant and ominous, no wind to coax attack.

I knew Mary Poppins was magic, but still. If she left everytime the winds changed, she would be bopping around from one child to another all week, working her charms in a matter of hours rather than days.

I think I know now what she meant by a change in the winds, "like somethin' is brewin', about to begin". And I think I understand more how she felt this change coming in. It's not something detected by a charming, whirling iron rooster atop a barn, or something only felt out in the open fields, vulnerable to the will of the winds. It's that restlessness. That anxious feeling of an upcoming bump in the road.

I feel it in my bones, wary yet eager, and I'm drawing on my hands again; sketching the images in permanent marker to try and keep my winds from change.

ii.
I'm pointing out your flaws again.

Forgive me. I know it's tiring and you've been patient, but I think deep down I know that if I keep thinking you're not as wonderful as you are, it will be that much easier to go back to life without you when the winds change

and you're gone.

iii.
I'm making phone calls again.

I don't think this is something I've actually willingly done since middle school, and there's a reason why. Back then, we discovered the three way call function, and private phone calls between two friends usually ended with a third voice being revealed at an awkward time for everyone involved.

But lately I've been craving that connection I can't get in abbreviations and smiley faces and all those false emotions that buzz in my pocket so many times a day.

I want to hear the silence that means you don't know how to answer my question. I want to hear the smile in your voice and taste that blissful moment where it's reflected in mine. I'm holding onto every bit of delicious human interaction and just once, I don't want to give you the time to think up a witty, coy response. I want your first response, the mutters rolling through your teeth before you can think to stop them.

I want what's real.