She's playing me.  I can't complain.  It's nice to have something I can count 
on.  I wish I could take it personally, cause she's the kind of girl I'd 
like to slap a cross-body armlock on to.  This sort of thing is never about me,
so I don't.  

You know in movies where there's a character looking for love, and 
they go through all the romance movie cliches and finally realize that 
the person for them was right next to them the whole time?  That could 
never happen to me because I'm always evaluating.  I get disappointed or 
elated like the next guy, but I never get surprised.  I'm not saying I'm 
smarter than you, I just spend more time thinking.

She says she loves me.  I'm like, great, let's skip to the part where you 
work me over with a t-ball bat and steal my organ donor card.  Or maybe 
I'm like, great, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich, and then I 
take a drag from a cigarette even though I don't smoke.  Or maybe I'm 
like, great, pin me to the floor and put out cigarettes in my chest even 
though you don't smoke.

But to be honest, it wasn't like that.  She said she loved me, but she 
said it like she was saying she's allergic to shellfish and cat dander.  
And I didn't play cool.  I went all de Niro and shit: "You love me?  You 
love me?!  I don't see nobody else here so you must love me."  I used to 
have a mohawk in grade school, did you know?

So yeah, she's playing me.  Or I'm playing myself, which ought to start 
chafing real soon now.  What's a few mix CDs or a casual phrase, right?  
The thing is, words are magic; she has to know by now that that's how I 
feel.  I mean, we were talking once and she said "Benita, you're going to be a 
great writer someday" or something like that.  And I wanted to take a drag 
on my cigarette and say "Look babydoll, I'm a great writer right now."  
Only I would have actually said right _fucking_ now because fucking is my 
favorite word.  

Words are magic.  Check this out:

"Could spasm gouts of technicolor spunk skyward, falling like heaven's 
fiery tears, clattering on tin roofs and ending dinosaurs whole species at 
a time, so gravid with unspent sex am I."

Okay, not my best work you're saying.  And maybe an IMAX movie adaptation 
would do better justice to the imagery than plaintext.  But it still beats 
"I'm horny," and nightmares of blazing spunk meteorites oughta keep at 
least one of you awake tonight.  If I could play guitar I'd start a band 
called Blazing Spunk Meteorites.

I still can't get brooms to carry buckets, I know just a little magic.  
But a beautiful girl starts tossing out words like "love" and "wankle 
rotary engine" and you've got trouble.  That's all I'm saying.  Handled 
that one pretty calmly I think... thanks be to Lithium.

Player, if you're out there and paying attention, I'm sure that however 
you feel about me I feel the same way.  And if it's love?  Love is teeth on a 
ball sack.  Ain't no way to do it right, and somebody's bound to get hurt.

--
Ben Williamson

...don't mean I wouldn't try it anyway