tell me where to put my hands
fatigue is marching through me with thorny bushes, dragging over my insides and making me ache everywhere. i'm continuously tip-toeing the edge of tears, yet i don't feel superbly out of balance. mostly i'm ridiculously tired of my own company. the house is so silent and i can only fill up so much.
contemporary and classical ballet take a lot of me, currently. i work hard yet i'm nowhere near as good as i want to be, and frustration has a habit of cropping up. i want to be able to do it faster, better, more elegant, less stiff and more fluidly. it's just not happening and that frustrates and embarrasses me.
but hey. we live to learn, right? it's just a hobby anyway. i'm just starting to think of how much of a hobby it is when i don't enjoy it that much.
so i started with just random words that flopped from my mind and then it turned into something more defined.
it's dark out and the bees have died by now. she whispers but he can't hear. the sound might reach his eardrums but no signals make it to his head. he wishes but that never changed anything. in the dark their clothes feel smooth and they feel young and guess what? that they are. but he still can't hear. she whispers nonetheless, the sounds of her voice cascading down her lips and over her chin, dripping onto her chest. they're not loud enough to reach his ears.
but what is?
so he reads the shape of her mouth and mouths along and puts his mouth on hers.
she has such beautiful lips, he thinks.
i'm sorry, he thinks.
and he presses his ear to her chest and pretends he can hear the rumble in her ribcage.
little lights in the dark over their heads, empty glasses of water on the nightstand. he went to get them, you know, after. and she looks at them, at the little lights and the empty glasses, but she doesn't wish. she likes him like this, the silence, the way his voice sounds rounded, like his tongue doesn't quite work. the unsophisticated edge to his words, his slightly odd laugh. she loves those things.
around him she gets to dance with her hands, and he dances with her. she leads and he follows, she follows and he leads. a duet of soundless words, with pauses and stumbles and moments of pure bliss when their hands go to say the same. the lights in their eyes when they don't even need it.
she breathes and runs her hand through his hair. thinks of perfection and peace, and the way he's touching her hip. no, she thinks. we don't need the sounds.
and with his ear to her skin he wishes just that.
(perfection is creeping in again, so i'm going to post this entry even though i'm not happy with it, because otherwise the standards i'm setting for myself will make me unhappy.)