Please forgive me
for this
my latest distance
but I have realized that I have only eight more
allotted embarrassments before you,
in this millennium,
lest I transform into a puddle of squish
which will then be a ninth embarrassment
at which point I simply don’t know shall be.

I’ve been trying to pace myself,
you see,
so that I don’t blow it
around you
too often
and lose my cool
and lose the privilege of your presence
which I lose sleep about so frequently.

It’s ever so easy
when you’re around
for me to fly off the handle
and get excited
and say something stupid
or jump up and down
and randomly nervously
erotically gesticulate about rhododendrons
or something equally irrelevant
and run into a waitron
or say waitron
which is either demeaning or meaningless
but whichever way
breaks a lot of glass
and makes me blush and you looking
for someone else to talk to.

So it’s better
if we occasionally
keep in touch
without line of sight.

Sometimes, though,
even your handwriting
is enough to bring out the fool in me.
The loops can bring me wild.

Anyways
I’ll see you when I can
which I hope is soon
and I hope is often
and I hope is all the time
and I better sign off before
all right bye.