Water for the Hippies
Tracy Bersley
I wonder how much longer I will write about him. Will he pass through these pages like the water that passes through my system? It's supposed to purify me. Will he?
His smile is sinister but so inviting. I want to kiss him but he complains about my morning breath as he conveniently conceals his with a piece of blue minty gum.
And there are these men with long hippie hairs, and I know that their drug habit is probably as bad as my water habit (but more expensive). It bums me out because I really love water, (I drink over a gallon a day) and I'd really love to mix with it some saliva from a hippie's wet lips. But with their beauty comes their mentality, so I stick with my clean cut homeboy and listen to jazz, alone, and dance my most sensual dance wishing it were a prelude to a dance of a sexual kind. But I can't mix a toke with a waltz or a rapper's saggy pants with grace.
So I refuse the attempt at a kiss because I am humiliated, and I lust after the men with long hippie hairs because I know I could never marry one. I sip my water and wonder how healthy I am inside. I think of the man I sleep next to and figure it can't be too healthy.
All I really want is to love, freely and beautifully like a mountain stream (that inevitably — as the commercials tell me — ends up in my water bottle). And maybe that's what I've done — bottled my love — and heaven forbid I waste one drop on someone else. I drink the dregs, and if someone with me is thirsty, well then, go ask the waitress or take from the tap, but don't drink mine! I have my gallon a day — you take a cup and I may get dehydrated...
Damn. Is this what I've done with my love? (On occasion, I let my friends take a sip — but only if they ask). Damn. Why can't I pour it into their cup? (On occasion, I even say "no"). Damn. What do I think this is, a drought? (On occasion. I realize that even a hippie needs a drink).
Most people in America don't drink enough water. According to the doctors, its eight cups a day that you need. According to me. you can never have enough. I look at the bit of water still standing in the long plastic -clear but probably not pure. I know that before long, it will be flushed down the toilet after its dark run through the maze of veins and pipes and tubes. And maybe I'm the only one who has a relationship with a water bottle, but I don't see any jealous hippies. So I'll try to love this homeboy who probably has no idea why he says he loves me, and maybe tomorrow I'll give some of my gallon away. And maybe someday, I'll even shower in my gallon and share the bath with a hippie.
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