thinking to death

spun himself about, he did
when she said what he wanted to hear &
then what came next was the torturous conclusion of a series of steps
ranging within the mind
which might have been going on the whole while that he was asking her on the outside
just what it is that he worked himself up to---
now,
whether or not she too
was bouncing around in the badminton of selves,
making her way through the personality convention in her head like shirley ardell mason
on a good day,
neither will ever know,
but what did happen during the sequence of events
was that somewhere along the line she picked an impression to give him
with the subsequent performance that did accompany it
so that the batting of the eyelashes &
the witty sarcasm that dove off her tongue
juxtaposed & left him with a
sexy intelligent woman, who
just at his fingertips,
now made him feel as if he was moving round &
round & round in a
hula-hoop,
with nothing but a dizzy head & an aching heart to show for it,
because rather than allow himself to be ecstatic with her decision to spend time alone with him,
he rambled & rambled
churning all the possibilities of failure that might arise,
wondering about the men that she was already seeing,
wondering if he would be that paranoid guy who will not trust any movement she makes
if it isn’t with him,
wanting not to be possessive or jealous,
but not wanting her to think he didn’t care,
wondering if he’d made a good initial impression on her
(& if he could ever do it again),
wondering just exactly why she wanted to see him again,
this time alone?
analyzing every breath she breathed,
taking ever word into a different account,
breaking down every gesture that she made,
meticulously deconstructing every physical piece of evidence
which had anything at all to do with their brief meeting
whatsoever---
and then, she reconsidered her choice,
saying that she had just forgot,
the evening she said she would be free to see him, she was actually busy.