Are you really gone?
I have felt you in the next room for a long time. I call out. You don't answer... and now I'm moving out.
after
The sheets were softer than any I owned and far more expensive. Cream coloured beige and beautiful on a high bed, and I sunk into it and floated away in an undercurrent. His pupils were dilated, the surrounding colour a blue I hadn’t noticed before they were that close to me, and his kisses were what they were supposed to be, soft and hard by turns and thrilling. I was dizzy and he saw me as a dark thing, a difficult and prickly thing that had dropped its defences and allowed him to hold it. In the shadows we told each other things while playing on the radio in the other room was music picked to impress me. I waited until track one played again, and left, out on to the street and into my car, lips bruised; driving off into the night feeling like I was moving underwater.
What I have not told you about that night was that I was never supposed to be in that bed. Those sheets should not have been shared with me. His eyes were a pretty colour, but shuttered. I wasn’t allowed to bite. I said things that were callous, and they helped me make my insides feel hard. I was something to him and nothing at the same time. He did things not to my taste, they were not about me. I had said no to him a thousand times, and don’t know where I found the yes of that night. I had to leave before she came home. As I left, at the end of the street a police car sat, lights on, red flashing on the street where I walked, illuminating my path with the colour of an underworld. If they had taken me away for wrong doings, I would not have been surprised.
Neither of these accounts is true.
What I have not told you about that night was that I was never supposed to be in that bed. Those sheets should not have been shared with me. His eyes were a pretty colour, but shuttered. I wasn’t allowed to bite. I said things that were callous, and they helped me make my insides feel hard. I was something to him and nothing at the same time. He did things not to my taste, they were not about me. I had said no to him a thousand times, and don’t know where I found the yes of that night. I had to leave before she came home. As I left, at the end of the street a police car sat, lights on, red flashing on the street where I walked, illuminating my path with the colour of an underworld. If they had taken me away for wrong doings, I would not have been surprised.
Neither of these accounts is true.
during
I’ve been here before, and you know that. I don’t think I want to slide down that rock face. But right now, I’m wondering, wondering; wandering, humming along, pondering, singing ‘I don’t want to see you as the next in line,’ thinking about what is keeping me on the ground. Considering footholds but not even imagining the possibility that I won’t fall.
before
I’ve been thinking of you today. How fresh it felt to think of you, to have your face dancing in the corner of my vision.
Your tiny caresses are more and less than what I want. I can lean into them, but what will that get me? I can pull away, but what will that get me?
Your hands are warm and I’ve been cold. Your nails are clean. But your mind is slippery. I’ve been here before.
Your tiny caresses are more and less than what I want. I can lean into them, but what will that get me? I can pull away, but what will that get me?
Your hands are warm and I’ve been cold. Your nails are clean. But your mind is slippery. I’ve been here before.
It's a minefield. She is unable to leaf through photos, old papers, yellowing and curling at the corners, without his presence making itself known.
There is a film she enjoys watching about deleting memories, people from lives. The moral of the story is that there are always good memories with the bad, enough to make the forgetting as painful as the remembering.
She can't think of any memory with him that is singly beautiful.
There is a film she enjoys watching about deleting memories, people from lives. The moral of the story is that there are always good memories with the bad, enough to make the forgetting as painful as the remembering.
She can't think of any memory with him that is singly beautiful.
sometimesalways.
You throw at me what he's been doing lately. I guess I understand. He has a part of me. But you have a part of me too. Stop making me get the part that is his out so that you can look at it. The extraction makes me bleed.
22.09.09
I’ve been listening to a song that a woman sings to her man about wearing holes in the soles of his boots. She sings about waiting at home for him to stop his wanderings, about the dirt he might trek in to her house, about needing his strong hands, about waiting for him to be still. The song makes me think of you. I ponder the sight of your boots under my bed. I think about needing your strong hands.
I do need your strong hands. But I also think about those holes in the soles of your shoes. And I wonder about the holes in the soles of my shoes. I don’t know which one of us would be waiting for the other to be still. I don’t know if I would be able to wait at home wondering about another’s stillness.
I do need your strong hands. But I also think about those holes in the soles of your shoes. And I wonder about the holes in the soles of my shoes. I don’t know which one of us would be waiting for the other to be still. I don’t know if I would be able to wait at home wondering about another’s stillness.
I nearly missed the turn. My friend, although incredibly confident in her critique of my driving could not drive herself and was not that much more skilled with a map. I was negotiating a borrowed, beaten up car through the unfamiliar landscape. Just before the turn, she had told me not to miss it. That was the extent of her navigation; a warning not to make a mistake. This should have been a sign for me to interpret all of her warnings (and there were many) as directives that were often as dangerous as what they were warning against, and hid as much as they made plain.
So I nearly missed the turn, and swung out dangerously, going far too fast, to make it in time. She swore.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said.
I couldn’t either. I wasn’t really myself. I nearly missed the turn, and what if I had? I suppose we would have turned around, made our way back. But in the end, I made it. And I was on my way to you.
So I nearly missed the turn, and swung out dangerously, going far too fast, to make it in time. She swore.
“I can’t believe you did that,” she said.
I couldn’t either. I wasn’t really myself. I nearly missed the turn, and what if I had? I suppose we would have turned around, made our way back. But in the end, I made it. And I was on my way to you.
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