(no subject)
When you name me, my cadence is never enough, quaking slice of tangerine on your tongue, but just the one. You light me up, breathe me out your nose, and flick me to my cherry-bomb knees.
And I am forever singing just beneath your heel.
And I am forever waxen on the out of me, like god on the inside.
And I am ever more than a handful, more than you would be willing to hold.
They are always wanting pictures of who I was. When I say "lime green swiss dot" when I say "Southern Belle" when I say "afraid and shy and my hands white knuckling in my pockets." They are worse than their younger, less scholarly counterparts. They are then adults, younger than children, and the room becomes a romance and the table etches out words on its surface under the flourescent lights.
I want to say that any one of you could turn your eyes inside and find the same slice of quaking fruit, the same cyclops of a god, the same little ginger cookie. But then, too, I wanted to reach through the beginning, pull your clothes off slowly, and show you without question that you can never be the same golden sweet, the same clear blue judgment, the same melting alchemy.
We were saying all sorts of big words, but I just wanted to say "touch." I just wanted to say, sometimes you just know -- sometimes you just meet someone, spend five minutes with them, and know that if you put your finger on their bare skin then the rest would be hollow, wet, quaking blue. Magic. You might never regain your balance again. You might never have to breathe mere mortal breaths ever again.
Bodies are easy; we give them undue attention. Touching someone's hair is nice, or running the palm of your hand over their hip bones, or the tip of your tongue over that soft skin inside of their thighs. But when you said, "It mattered to her, and that was all the mattered, because it mattered to her, and she matters," then I wanted not to touch at all, but only to look across the table at you, the lines of your face that tell the story of all the nights you lived a swimming lie in bars, all the cigarettes you sucked to the filter when you were trying to get laid, all the times you went down on strangers and didn't recognize their faces when again you surfaced.
When you said, "It mattered to her," then you mattered to me, and in this way. The distance was the thing. That we were there, alone in a room full of people, was the thing. Whoever we might be alone is just a turn in the hallway, a path that we might take one day. But the distance is the now, and your words were comforting, reassuring like fork tines pressed into the back of my hand when I lost sight of the end during unbearable childhood meals. Reasuring like mown grass, new books, and the kinds of clothes you wear on a cold and rainy day. Reassuring like the lines around your eyes, your hands in your pockets, what you've told me of your junior high self, and the flattery of your lies when you say you have no dark side and you aren't about ego. Reassuring like you, gifts in hand. Wanting approval, and rejecting it at the same time.
The way that the air was reflecting between us was like a land rush, and there we were, eyes locked, and I knew that we were in this thing together.
And I am forever singing just beneath your heel.
And I am forever waxen on the out of me, like god on the inside.
And I am ever more than a handful, more than you would be willing to hold.
They are always wanting pictures of who I was. When I say "lime green swiss dot" when I say "Southern Belle" when I say "afraid and shy and my hands white knuckling in my pockets." They are worse than their younger, less scholarly counterparts. They are then adults, younger than children, and the room becomes a romance and the table etches out words on its surface under the flourescent lights.
I want to say that any one of you could turn your eyes inside and find the same slice of quaking fruit, the same cyclops of a god, the same little ginger cookie. But then, too, I wanted to reach through the beginning, pull your clothes off slowly, and show you without question that you can never be the same golden sweet, the same clear blue judgment, the same melting alchemy.
We were saying all sorts of big words, but I just wanted to say "touch." I just wanted to say, sometimes you just know -- sometimes you just meet someone, spend five minutes with them, and know that if you put your finger on their bare skin then the rest would be hollow, wet, quaking blue. Magic. You might never regain your balance again. You might never have to breathe mere mortal breaths ever again.
Bodies are easy; we give them undue attention. Touching someone's hair is nice, or running the palm of your hand over their hip bones, or the tip of your tongue over that soft skin inside of their thighs. But when you said, "It mattered to her, and that was all the mattered, because it mattered to her, and she matters," then I wanted not to touch at all, but only to look across the table at you, the lines of your face that tell the story of all the nights you lived a swimming lie in bars, all the cigarettes you sucked to the filter when you were trying to get laid, all the times you went down on strangers and didn't recognize their faces when again you surfaced.
When you said, "It mattered to her," then you mattered to me, and in this way. The distance was the thing. That we were there, alone in a room full of people, was the thing. Whoever we might be alone is just a turn in the hallway, a path that we might take one day. But the distance is the now, and your words were comforting, reassuring like fork tines pressed into the back of my hand when I lost sight of the end during unbearable childhood meals. Reasuring like mown grass, new books, and the kinds of clothes you wear on a cold and rainy day. Reassuring like the lines around your eyes, your hands in your pockets, what you've told me of your junior high self, and the flattery of your lies when you say you have no dark side and you aren't about ego. Reassuring like you, gifts in hand. Wanting approval, and rejecting it at the same time.
The way that the air was reflecting between us was like a land rush, and there we were, eyes locked, and I knew that we were in this thing together.