She was once a girl sitting in the middle of the desert with too much whiskey in her blood and not enough power in her words (she still had so much to learn about herself and the might of her words and her body and her blood that runs thick as molten gold through her veins) and was a librarian and that was enough.
Sometimes Rick catches her standing in front of the mirror, her hand reaching out as if to touch her own face, and he doesn't say anything at all, just wraps his arms around her waist from behind and presses a kiss onto her head and waits for her to come back to him from the abyss that is her own mind. Every time she falls out of memory and lands against his chest she worries that he might not be there, that she is really falling and that this time (like the first time) she will be crushed against the ground, her bones ground into dust in an instant of time. Every time she falls out of her own mind and back into the scent and feel of him, her breath catches like a windstorm and his arms tighten involuntarily as if to prove to themselves that they are still real, that she hasn't somehow dragged his flesh and bone away from the earth and turned them into the wisps of memory.
She likes to turn up her face to him and kiss him like that, his arms around her waist and his chest pressed firmly against her back and her reflection looking on, watching him claim her and keep her solid. Sometimes she is momentarily angry with him, sometimes an ancient voice inside her rises up and yearns for the freedom to slide a knife between his second and third rib for daring to touch her and then his hands slide up the curve of her arms and he deepens the kiss and even that ancient, angry thing falls into the tactile, sensual, physical, real of his skin against her skin and his tongue dancing against her tongue and relents.
It is the only time when she ever feels as though she is not at war within her own mind, pressing the anger and fear back. Cars frighten her by design, sometimes she stares at electric lights for hours just marveling at their impossibility, kitchens are now completely off-limits after she nearly burned down their residence. She is a thing of the now - and yet a terrified thing of the past.
She loves herself in a fierce and unquestioning way as she always has. She laughs at the old ideas of her youth as memories from another time bubble up in her mind. She sometimes wakes up Rick with a shout and a tumbled explanation of something she was right about when everyone else thought she was crazy. She delights in the things that her mind proves to her as correct. But even more: she rolls around and drinks up the things she once had so very, very wrong. When the ancient part of her is wrong, she laughs and her heart expands and the part inside her that is timeless as sand marvels with an awe that inspires and rages like wildfire. When the young, girlish part of her is wrong the ancient knowledge inside of her unfurls and beckons with promise and pride, coaxing and guiding her, sharing in her wonder and her delight.
I am a librarian, she is a library. She is a place inside a girl forever yearning and learning and growing until her skin feels too confining and the earth feels too small and everything is too much and then there is a man at her back and the cool scent of earth washing over her senses and she is just a woman again.
She loves.
She learns to love, she teaches herself to love, she loves with the wisdom of a thousand years and with a heart as vibrant and complex as the Nile herself. She eases into loving, she holds it at bay, she plays with her child and the world is a kaleidoscope, she teaches and comforts and listens and he teaches her every moment of every day. She walks with her brother and teases him and the words are a cacophony, she is all words and play and laughter and she is made up of wind and only the anchor in her heart that is shaped like a silly man's face keeps her tied to the earth. She teaches herself to love, the new and the ancient. So many ways to love and be loved. It overwhelms, it threatens to swallow her up.
And there is a man at her back and fingers caressing her throat and her own eyes in the mirror staring back and wondering at the image before it, a woman who holds the world within her muscles and bones - caught and tied to a man with a quick smile and flashing eyes and a laugh that does curious things to her toes.
"Am I so very different now?"
She doesn't want the answer, she needs the answer, she is terrified of his answer, she cannot turn away from the mirror.
He taps on her forehead, "In here, maybe."
She wants to run, feels a burning desire to smash the glass and give it up - give it all up (but what will be left? how can she quantify which is her anymore when she is so many parts?).
He smiles and kisses her ear, pressing a hand over her heart, "But here you are the same."
She gazes upon the hand on her skin in the mirror and it causes a stutter in her chest. He can feel it, she knows, because his chest rumbles with laughter against her back.
She drags her eyes away from the hand to the face of the man behind her, looking past her own body, past her own confusion, and finds him watching her.
Not her reflection.
Not looking back and forth between the creature of flesh beneath his hands and the shadow reflected in the mirror.
All this time she was divided, watching herself watch herself be loved and never embracing it. Will it kill her, this excess of emotion? This excess of life? To pull away from the things that divide her into many moving parts and become one machine pulled in one direction? Will she fall?
Will the fall kill her yet again?
She turns in his arms and faces him, chest to chest, lips to lips, palm to palm. She can hear a roaring in her ears and she is falling, too quickly, so effortlessly, there is nothing holding her back, she rises up on her toes to press her lips more fully against his and he groans against her.
He submits to her, follows her falls with her, and the shock of that buoys her up, makes her whole again.
In the morning ancient eyes peer out at her from a young face and young hands pull back ancient hair. She is the sum of her parts, she has fallen and she will continue to fall. She is the universe within the body of a woman.
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you and me and my ghost make three
She was once a girl sitting in the middle of the desert with too much whiskey in her blood and not enough power in her words (she still had so much to learn about herself and the might of her words and her body and her blood that runs thick as molten gold through her veins) and was a librarian and that was enough.
Sometimes Rick catches her standing in front of the mirror, her hand reaching out as if to touch her own face, and he doesn't say anything at all, just wraps his arms around her waist from behind and presses a kiss onto her head and waits for her to come back to him from the abyss that is her own mind. Every time she falls out of memory and lands against his chest she worries that he might not be there, that she is really falling and that this time (like the first time) she will be crushed against the ground, her bones ground into dust in an instant of time. Every time she falls out of her own mind and back into the scent and feel of him, her breath catches like a windstorm and his arms tighten involuntarily as if to prove to themselves that they are still real, that she hasn't somehow dragged his flesh and bone away from the earth and turned them into the wisps of memory.
She likes to turn up her face to him and kiss him like that, his arms around her waist and his chest pressed firmly against her back and her reflection looking on, watching him claim her and keep her solid. Sometimes she is momentarily angry with him, sometimes an ancient voice inside her rises up and yearns for the freedom to slide a knife between his second and third rib for daring to touch her and then his hands slide up the curve of her arms and he deepens the kiss and even that ancient, angry thing falls into the tactile, sensual, physical, real of his skin against her skin and his tongue dancing against her tongue and relents.
It is the only time when she ever feels as though she is not at war within her own mind, pressing the anger and fear back. Cars frighten her by design, sometimes she stares at electric lights for hours just marveling at their impossibility, kitchens are now completely off-limits after she nearly burned down their residence. She is a thing of the now - and yet a terrified thing of the past.
She loves herself in a fierce and unquestioning way as she always has. She laughs at the old ideas of her youth as memories from another time bubble up in her mind. She sometimes wakes up Rick with a shout and a tumbled explanation of something she was right about when everyone else thought she was crazy. She delights in the things that her mind proves to her as correct. But even more: she rolls around and drinks up the things she once had so very, very wrong. When the ancient part of her is wrong, she laughs and her heart expands and the part inside her that is timeless as sand marvels with an awe that inspires and rages like wildfire. When the young, girlish part of her is wrong the ancient knowledge inside of her unfurls and beckons with promise and pride, coaxing and guiding her, sharing in her wonder and her delight.
I am a librarian, she is a library. She is a place inside a girl forever yearning and learning and growing until her skin feels too confining and the earth feels too small and everything is too much and then there is a man at her back and the cool scent of earth washing over her senses and she is just a woman again.
She loves.
She learns to love, she teaches herself to love, she loves with the wisdom of a thousand years and with a heart as vibrant and complex as the Nile herself. She eases into loving, she holds it at bay, she plays with her child and the world is a kaleidoscope, she teaches and comforts and listens and he teaches her every moment of every day. She walks with her brother and teases him and the words are a cacophony, she is all words and play and laughter and she is made up of wind and only the anchor in her heart that is shaped like a silly man's face keeps her tied to the earth. She teaches herself to love, the new and the ancient. So many ways to love and be loved. It overwhelms, it threatens to swallow her up.
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"Am I so very different now?"
She doesn't want the answer, she needs the answer, she is terrified of his answer, she cannot turn away from the mirror.
He taps on her forehead, "In here, maybe."
She wants to run, feels a burning desire to smash the glass and give it up - give it all up (but what will be left? how can she quantify which is her anymore when she is so many parts?).
He smiles and kisses her ear, pressing a hand over her heart, "But here you are the same."
She gazes upon the hand on her skin in the mirror and it causes a stutter in her chest. He can feel it, she knows, because his chest rumbles with laughter against her back.
She drags her eyes away from the hand to the face of the man behind her, looking past her own body, past her own confusion, and finds him watching her.
Not her reflection.
Not looking back and forth between the creature of flesh beneath his hands and the shadow reflected in the mirror.
All this time she was divided, watching herself watch herself be loved and never embracing it. Will it kill her, this excess of emotion? This excess of life? To pull away from the things that divide her into many moving parts and become one machine pulled in one direction? Will she fall?
Will the fall kill her yet again?
She turns in his arms and faces him, chest to chest, lips to lips, palm to palm. She can hear a roaring in her ears and she is falling, too quickly, so effortlessly, there is nothing holding her back, she rises up on her toes to press her lips more fully against his and he groans against her.
He submits to her, follows her falls with her, and the shock of that buoys her up, makes her whole again.
In the morning ancient eyes peer out at her from a young face and young hands pull back ancient hair. She is the sum of her parts, she has fallen and she will continue to fall. She is the universe within the body of a woman.
She is a librarian.
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