reclaiming imogen
"Who knows what I love you feels like, anyway? Like the lingering of a lost voice or the sting of licorice drops held under the tongue? You made it so easy to lose my head when the world suddenly shifted from flat and lifeless to gaudy three dimensions. I didn’t know what to do with it all. Didn’t know when to close my eyes and stop the spin. There just wasn’t enough room to stuff my pockets full of the angles and textures - leaving the inevitable bruise that remains from trying to hold something intangible in the palm of a hand.
After I walked away, the string that was pulling me across the world slowly slipped from my fingers. Distance and time inevitably deflate infatuation. The exchange of obligatory finishing words took on the mode of two separate conversations, exposing the necessary element - physicality. Each note or phone call ending in silly commentary and innuendo that didn’t seem to match the other insular dialogue about who got to keep the coffeemaker or when I might collect other insignificant forgotten items. This realization produced that pinch - the scratch in the back of the throat - that reminded me just what I am, or what I was, or perhaps, provided me with definition. A receptacle. A body. A lover. Not your full time. Not lasting.
I was looking for confirmation in useless vacant terms. Searching for solace in my own brand of self-destructive lunacy. We had always been on the opposite sides of love. For months, I let that be enough for me. Because it was all you were willing to give, and I wanted something. Anything to attach to those hands, that body, that face, those moments. Somewhere along the way being your ambiguous in-between no longer was enough.
I was your in-between. Your never-mind. Together, we weren’t anything visible. Like vapor before it falls from the sky. After months of undressing each other on spontaneous weekends, we arrived at that sacred point where silences resonated. When I convinced myself that the use of false and empty words fell away to reveal a clean place without vocabulary - a higher form of communication. We lived there. In tenuous moments of blindness. An unawkward muteness. And I began to define myself by the shape of your body - through the movement of our tongues.
You were holy. My origin. But there was no way to make things right, even as we ran slick from the shower to your room to avoid your housemates. Lying endlessly with limbs intertwined, you made me feel like the bass chord of your favorite song. But I knew about the others. It was so much easier to let the silences fill in for truths like marriages and other deniable relationships. To believe that the possibility existed for me to take the place of whoever-you-slept-with when I wasn’t around. Even though you had explained on numerous occasions that you weren’t interested in a serious emotional entanglement. Even though I said I understood. I lied in confirmation.
It’s been awhile since I’ve allowed myself to think about us, and there’s something that happens in the span of time between words. A spark of anticipation that makes my fingertips buzz. That makes my head rock. Thoughts of your eyes - your soft skin - shape my lips into a grin like an indecent proposal. I wonder if you still bat ocean blue intoxication. If you still try to love too many people at once. Your eyes were like ice - the pleasing kind that you want to crunch between your teeth until your cheeks and tongue are numb. It’s nice to think of you this way. Before we exceeded the logical limits of words or explanations. Before I left your house trailing expletives and shared commodities like bread crumbs, without a moment to notice that I wasn’t even wearing my own clothes."
After I walked away, the string that was pulling me across the world slowly slipped from my fingers. Distance and time inevitably deflate infatuation. The exchange of obligatory finishing words took on the mode of two separate conversations, exposing the necessary element - physicality. Each note or phone call ending in silly commentary and innuendo that didn’t seem to match the other insular dialogue about who got to keep the coffeemaker or when I might collect other insignificant forgotten items. This realization produced that pinch - the scratch in the back of the throat - that reminded me just what I am, or what I was, or perhaps, provided me with definition. A receptacle. A body. A lover. Not your full time. Not lasting.
I was looking for confirmation in useless vacant terms. Searching for solace in my own brand of self-destructive lunacy. We had always been on the opposite sides of love. For months, I let that be enough for me. Because it was all you were willing to give, and I wanted something. Anything to attach to those hands, that body, that face, those moments. Somewhere along the way being your ambiguous in-between no longer was enough.
I was your in-between. Your never-mind. Together, we weren’t anything visible. Like vapor before it falls from the sky. After months of undressing each other on spontaneous weekends, we arrived at that sacred point where silences resonated. When I convinced myself that the use of false and empty words fell away to reveal a clean place without vocabulary - a higher form of communication. We lived there. In tenuous moments of blindness. An unawkward muteness. And I began to define myself by the shape of your body - through the movement of our tongues.
You were holy. My origin. But there was no way to make things right, even as we ran slick from the shower to your room to avoid your housemates. Lying endlessly with limbs intertwined, you made me feel like the bass chord of your favorite song. But I knew about the others. It was so much easier to let the silences fill in for truths like marriages and other deniable relationships. To believe that the possibility existed for me to take the place of whoever-you-slept-with when I wasn’t around. Even though you had explained on numerous occasions that you weren’t interested in a serious emotional entanglement. Even though I said I understood. I lied in confirmation.
It’s been awhile since I’ve allowed myself to think about us, and there’s something that happens in the span of time between words. A spark of anticipation that makes my fingertips buzz. That makes my head rock. Thoughts of your eyes - your soft skin - shape my lips into a grin like an indecent proposal. I wonder if you still bat ocean blue intoxication. If you still try to love too many people at once. Your eyes were like ice - the pleasing kind that you want to crunch between your teeth until your cheeks and tongue are numb. It’s nice to think of you this way. Before we exceeded the logical limits of words or explanations. Before I left your house trailing expletives and shared commodities like bread crumbs, without a moment to notice that I wasn’t even wearing my own clothes."