The Greeting

The journey to our first greeting still stays quite alert in my nostalgia banks, for a cash and carry in, let's say I could have my own membership card.
One of those dream like nights with long silences and the smell of pepper, at first the night ahead was nothing of an interest to me, I gave a polite hello, in fact to hide my hideous emotion of ache, to why I was there, I couldn't have said no. He was 5"9 with the intelligence and quick whit of somewhat of a charmer, but no charming was tolerated that whole way.

I got in the taxi, I wasn't fond of the small talk the driver continued to press, at the man sitting next to me. I could tell he too, was becoming slightly frustrated, with the strain of what to speak of next, more politics, world news or family life, for one he knew too little of the first two, and I feared for the last, so the cab driver needed to cut in, tell him of his three daughters, one was fluent in spanish, the other two, twins, couldn't be more different.

My stomach turning was loud enough for my accomplice for the night to get the idea I didn't particularly want to be where I was.
It was cold, although I don't know if it was, I do recall it was sometime in April, my coat was gripped tight to my chest, as our first encounter was somewhat mesmerizing for me to grab onto something, anything.
When he asked me was I hungry, for something, I thought yes, an escape plan.
Could I phone my mum, maybe she could fake an injury, heaven knows why I agreed at all, logic was in order, I sank further in my seat.

I can't take it away from the 5"9 lad, if I hadn't agreed to his pathetic offer to bring me to a downtown club, which was baked with red studio lights, neon signs prompting for free drinks, happy hour and tedious late night music with the exception of you, and your first project,
I wouldn't have noticed when I entered, there was a cheap smell of cleaning agents and the band before yours was jazz, the remarkable thing was it made my hands shake, more than the idea of the date did.

Before he asked what I drank, I sat sulking some more, offered to pay myself and retrieved to the bar, to get what I wanted, out of the money I'd been keeping up, for an occasion like this, when I'd offer to pay for my own drink, to wash away the reality of why I needed nobody.
I think it made him rather uncomfortable, when he managed to appear beside me at the wooden end of the bar, my first smile of the night was due to the caricature of our bodies, looking like lonely strangers on a Thursday night, looking for love, or a humorous ploy.
That jazz band finished up pretty late, I knew this as what looked like a local, had been refused his tenth drink, he turned dim quickly, resorting in a close debate with the bar man, who looked like he belonged in the french navy, or a short film about past war survivors.
My tolerance levels were darting slowly in front of me, back and forth, back and forth.
I was ready to take immediate action, spending eleven minutes thinking of how I could get my coat to the bathroom without so much as a funny look, from them, or him.

Just as, I heard it, that sound I hear often enough, in my dreams or usually in an empty bar when I'm thinking of you. The first tune to the rest of my April.
The slick sounding sting, shot through me like a dagger to an enemies heart when your ever so delicate hands, strumming ever so softly, to the gawking faces in front, played the notes of the start, of what racks my brain eternally.
It sort of sounded like the noise you make when you've seen a ghost, erie, knowing trouble was waiting, or frozen on impact, like I was.
"Alright."
Was all you said, and continued on with your song, I listened, more than I'd ever listen closely to anything else, every disfigured light that might have been a sound, I heard.
What frustrated me about that night was how unprepared I was, of course that's how it happens isn't it?
Mystery's unexplained ways, mysterious lurking's in the back of the night, that date.
Before your set was finished, when you entered the second verse of your last song, he did try to speak to me, I felt sorry for the reaction I gave him, at that point I'd known he'd given up, with the concept of trying to get anything out of me, that look in his eye almost made me break concentration off of your chorus.
Finishing up with your hypnotic weapon which had me at first strum, I couldn't keep it in any longer, the time period had been overdue.
When he left for a bathroom break I took my chance, gulping like a fish without water, suffering and suffocating on deck, my body became lifeless, sound drained away, and the slow motion shock set in.
Approaching you was hard, and if you hadn't have smiled ever so naively at me, It wouldn't have been that hard, of course.
Unaware that you knew too, I carelessly tried to tell you how I liked your performance, feeling like a cliche being, on the prowl for a soul to spend the rest of my life with.
You told me before I could tell you, how you noticed I was only person in the bar who truly heard, and my attention was quite flattering, you blushed and that was it. From then on, I'd keep that night, even if it gathered dust in the back of the attic, generations would know about it, and now you do.
For only you, would have the patience to listen to a mildly explanation of our greeting on this day, of a wedding.
For only you could move such a miserable soul like your first miserable strum. Last night I looked back into the blue, and I knew.
Darling, I've won such a prize.