Scenes from the foyer

Today you are pressed against my closed front door. I am on you like fire: our bodies pressed furtively against each other, mouths connecting in a spreading spark that floods our senses with long-harbored lust.

We are explosive, today.

You are kissing me, moving between sharpness and air, lacerating my thoughts with each flick of your tongue against my lower lip. And I am kissing you. I am drawing your upper lip into my hungry mouth, teasing the tip of your tongue with my own, moving the emptiness away from us and lulling us into the depths of one soul-haunting kiss.

I can feel your heartbeat pumping through the fabric of your t-shirt -- the one I ache to tug over your head. The one I have seen you in countless times before and always, the same thought: too much fabric.

You slow, I follow. Your breath is rapid. Mine is- is it?- cautious. I realize that my hands are rounding your hips and yours are wrapped around me and your head is tucked between my shoulder and my neck.

Your lips are still moving.

this is you- me- lonely

I wonder when my walls will tumble down. Is it something I have to manufacture? Do I need to climb them, scale them to their uppermost perches, in order to rip them down, sheet by sheet of startlingly thick glass?

That's me: you can see me. Anyone can, if they look hard enough. My eyes hide nothing, which is why I fix my gaze on a wall when I'm speaking from my roots. We can all look for as long as we'd like, but you can't touch. You can't get in.

Even if you think you're in, because you think you do, you have to realize that you're not. Yes, I tell you a lot. Yes, I let you see me cry. Yes, you read between my scribbled lines. But you don't always hear me, and that's because I don't speak loudly enough.

The matter of want is still plauging me, twenty-four hours later. I don't know why I'm so fixated on this. (Even my Obscure Object had something to say about it. I'm not sold on her musings, but she is right, in the way that I almost don't want her to be right. So I'll say that she is right in some ways. Not entirely.) I just said, not fifteen minutes ago, that I don't know what I want. I was lying, sort of.

I don't know how I feel about falling in love (again). I love a lot, it's true. Right now, I'm spreading my love like a fucking virus. Sometimes it's a silent sweeper, other times it's a warming fever. [can you hear me?] But being in love? No thanks. It's just not what I want right now. I like feeling steady and self-centered (at least I can admit that I know I am self-centered). I don't want to worry about how someone else feels. I mostly like my life just the way it is. I do feel at peace, I am happy.

Seriously, I just think far too much for my own good. I can't even continue this tangent because my brain has overlapped and my thoughts are too tangled to bother to work through.

The morning I came untethered

You know that feeling? The one where you can feel your heart slide down your torso and drop directly into the pit of your stomach?

That's the feeling you give me. When I see you, hear your name mentioned, sometimes just the simplest thought of you: it falls. & I fall with it. (more than you'll ever know)

I realized something tonight-- my irritation re: the slightly illicit affair that two of my friends are having- with each other- it is a matter of jealousy. And it doesn't have a thing to do with my feelings for either one of them, as I do not have feelings for either one of them. The jealousy comes from the matter of the affair itself. The fact that they are having it. The fact that someone gets to indulge in her straight-woman crush, and languish in the moments they spend together. The escapes. The right-under-the-husband's-nose moments. The fact that they are acting, executing, the very thing I yearn for (though mine is not as illicit, as my Obscure Object is not in a relationship... she's just unattainable and categorically heterosexual)? That is the root of my jealousy.

Of course, I say this and recognize that the aforementioned affair is not the best relationship. How could it be, with the varying levels of deception and sneaking around? I know how/why some people find those things sexy, mostly because I've been caught there once or twice. I don't want that part. I don't want the uncertainty and fear and hurt.

I just want the woman that I want. The simplicity startles me; my inaction and (rational, sort of) fears are what complicate the simplicity.

I'll tell you what, I'll save you the trouble of running away

I had a night full of friends, good food, and abdomen-bursting laughter. Honestly, it couldn't have been better than what it was. I am grateful for it, and suddenly/finally cognizant of the meaning of "want." I want things, of course I do. Who doesn't? But the things that I want are not insurmountable, nor are they permanently unattainable. It's momentary. I don't know when the moment will pass. I don't know how much I care. What I currently have is more than enough. What I have sustains me, supports me, loves me, laughs with me, cares about me. It is enough- sometimes and always more so.

I'm typing with my thumbs still pushed through my jacket's sleeves. It's fucking cold tonight (I love it). Walking the dogs and running with them in the backyard, I still felt the warmth from the previous hours of my night. I haven't laughed that hard in a while, and I've been fortunate to be laughing a lot lately. I could go- I could leave at a moment's notice. Sometimes I train my mind to thoughts of disappearing and reworking my ground somewhere else.

The truth is-- I am not lacking. I am fulfilled. I am doing more for myself than I ever have. I realize I'm happy and keep moving.

I realized today, while listening to Pandora while grading papers, that I am ready to love (again). I retracted the statement not five minutes later, claiming I was kidding, but I'm not. Not really, anyway. I have the love to give. I have the capacity to give it. I have the want. But I know myself well enough to know that I won't give any love until I stop wanting my Obscure Object.

...and I can't say that I want to.

And I can understand, all I need is your hand

Have I ever mentioned that I'm not going to tell you all of this? Any of this? Nothing. No thing.

I breathe around you like it's any air, not yours.

I thought you were going away and leaving my system. I thought my brain and lungs were safe again; the tug and yank of every fiber of my living, breathing body could sit still. Be still. I thought I had myself fooled. (and then I saw you [again])

Oh won't you take the fall / it is me after all

I gave up running a few weeks ago because I didn't like what it was doing to my body. Now I'm restless and sensitive. Porous. That whole time- I was running away to you. Running from you. For you. Despite you.

Can I count days this high, this long? This far into knowing you, and I don't know all I wish I did. I do know: fall is within is, are we falling in it?, winter comes next and I love you in the grey-cold snow-threatening air. We don't do warmth. You seek me when it's cold, and I trip into your line of vision just long enough for you to see a sliver of all of the no-things I'm not telling you.

I do know: I wouldn't change any of this. That chance, once upon a glass of wine? I wouldn't go back and take it (I'd prefer that you don't hate me/you in the glare of dawn). The rushes and lulls? They can stay. That week I thought I was never going to be able to stop thinking about you and couldn't understand what was happening to my heart? That morning I pressed my cheek against tile and exhaled the previous night in fits of breathless confusion? Your indescribable attitude the other week? My stumbling tongue, bathed with or without alcohol? The way my stomach twists, wondering what you'll say next? Your eyes steady against my own searching, the way I worry I'm not holding enough/too much back in a single look that I'd swear could unravel my every feeling?

(I wouldn't change it.)

Instead, we should change our future. I'm ready for you and I thought I'd be terrified to say that because you are more than just you but the truth is I'm not scared. & I thought you should know.