the hunt: scent

My fingers smell like ginger, a vestige of the inari I just ate even though my stomach is in a State of Civil Unrest because it's an unruly bitch like that.

But -- anyway -- the ginger:

it reminds me of you.

And not because you ate some last night

because you didn't smell like it

but rather

like camping, sticky-sweet burnt sugar,

like air and desire and the utterly unmistakable

scent that is yours, yours alone,

that I want to drown in each time it slips

beneath my nose

trap it, keep it there,

always.

I like you best, us best, love best.

Like the first time I introduced you

to ginger & inari.

Snowstorm, I think, you gave me that look

like, really? You really want me

to eat this?

Or when we tried it at the sushi place

the other week

and you said "it's just like Wegmans."

Or when I got so excited about finding

ginger chews

at Queens

only to discover that they're actually

kind of disgusting and spicy-tangy

to the extreme.

And when I sink

into your skin

be it night, noon, morning,

(anywhere, any-when)

not wanting to come up for air

just melting,

breathing,

it is you

that I love best.

Blind-sided Highway

Today, I cannot focus. And I am really, really trying.

Because today: I am stuck in yesterday.

I am stuck on your lips- such a gentle, quiet movement- resting on my neck. I am stuck on the feel of your palm drawing lines from my ankles to my hips, and back again, up again, back, up, again.

And your legs pushing against mine. The contrast of your paled skin against my skin that has sat beneath too many rays of sun and seems to be slightly burnished year round.

I used to think I could write you out of me, and that thought consistently collided with a fear that, yes, I'd someday be able to write you out of me- without ever touching you.

Now, I can't feel fear. I can only feel you. Your touch and mine, slinking together. Your hands in my hair- somehow always a surprise sensation. Our hips mashing as one. Those deeply-rooted kisses that come like bolts of lighting in the midst of rainstorms. And I feel the tremble of our thunder just was well as I hear it- low, lulling rolls that engorge with- there's no other word for it- passion.

Is this what it's like to live in the moment, the eternal here & now? Fuck, I have been missing so very much.

I realize that I won't write you out of me because a little over twelve hours later, I can still feel you inside of me.

I want to be the fire you need

Epiphany last night: I haven't been the "aggressor" in a very long time. It's no wonder, then, why my assertive nature has been lying dormant, tucked down in order to save itself from rejection. Etc.

I round it off and say that I've had four serious, long term, "monogamous*" relationships with women. I qualify serious with the in-love factor; there are two other women that I consider ex-girlfriends, but I was never in love with either of them. And there have been dalliances, but again, regardless of the nature of those blips on my radar, they never became serious.

So! My first girlfriend- we got together when I was growing into my own gay skin. I was 20. She was six years older than me, and obviously far more experienced than I was. But that never stopped me with her. Hands down, that was the relationship in which I was most assertive, even aggressive, and I felt so unbelievably confident-- despite the fact that I, at first, really had no idea what I was doing. She provided a lot of firsts for me- I don't know that I did any of the same for her. But the bones of this: I was fearless, with her.

Why? BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE ANY LESBIAN BAGGAGE WEIGHING ME DOWN!

Enter my next girlfriend: El sotano. She is the most sexually aggressive woman I have ever been with; I have serious doubts that I could ever find anyone quite like that ever again. (I suppose that's why we've continued to fuck here and there over the years since we- so justly- parted.) I never had to do a damn thing, initiation-wise. I became very, very accustom to her assertiveness and watched my own start to fade into the background. Of course, there's an explosion of other pieces that go along with this sexual union, and that helps to explain my lack of assertion- she had another girlfriend for a good part of our time together. Ah, yes. I didn't know how to handle that at the age of 22, 23.

After that came a string of not-much-at-all (those 2 semi-serious relationships fall into this time frame), and then came A. I don't have a nickname for her; I rarely mention her. But we spent about 9 months in a relationship that progressed so sweetly, so non-aggressively. I remember initiating here and there, being perhaps a little assertive, but we were so not a match when it came to the bedroom. I oh so fondly recall her saying to me: "You don't have to fuck me like a jackhammer." Awesome! Yeah, so not a match. But again... my assertion was sleeping.

This leads us through another bout of random, semi-sexual encounters. Then comes Great Lakes. She dominated my life for the better part of three years- and I've been completely free of her for nine months. What remains is this fucking block I have with my assertive nature. Great Lakes mutilated that. Totally fucking destroyed it. I was told that I could not initiate sex- and then, many months later, when I voiced my annoyance with the fact that we were not having any sex to speak of, she blamed me. For not taking charge. This is just a shiny little glimpse into the utter bullshit that circled around our every waking moment together. I was never on steady ground with her- mentally, vocally, and certainly not sexually. When there was sex, it was pretty good, but that's what crazy people are good at: fucking. It was a major control issue with her. And within her issues, I totally lost my ability to be A) forthcoming (sexually), and B) assertive (in any way you can imagine).

Now, the healing. I did a lot of that over the summer. I dated quite effectively and did my thing, whatever. I was entirely conscious of everything I did. I dated C for a while and knew it wasn't going anywhere. Sexually- so not a match. I was relying on her to be assertive, and apparently she's not. I wanted to be taken care of, I think. I wanted someone to provide for me all the things that were so severely lacking in my previous relationship. I didn't want to be in control.

It's been a few months since I stopped seeing C. It's given me a chance to continue to claw back to the roots of who I am- and last night, it finally hit me. I was so much fucking happier when I had a heavy hand with control and when I was more assertive. So what the FUCK am I waiting for?

What's going on now is... well, it's interesting. It's a very -be here now / stay in the moment- kind of thing. & it's fun. & sexy. & it makes me smirk, a lot, because it's under most people's radar.

Part of it is almost demanding me to be assertive. I've been doing a fair job with that, I think, and it's helping me to reclaim that part of me I so miss. I've had to realize that there's very little threat of rejection, now. And that commands me to let go of that nagging fear and just go with it... which, again, I've been doing. It's hard, though! Being the non-assertive piece of a (oh fuck, what can I call this... hmm...) fuck-pair (hah!) is SO much easier than being the assertive piece. But if I'm not assertive, I'm sure as shit not going to get what I want, and I was an incredibly patient, hint-dropping factor in this equation for quite some time. There's no reason for my patience now. My caution, yes, and consideration. But patience? Uhm, no. I see no room for it.

What needs to increase is my level of assertion/aggression. Not anger-aggression. More like sexy-hot-fuck aggression. That want has been voiced. I'm still working my thoughts- certainly not my feelings- around this. It's hard to instantly turn that dormant part of myself back on, full volume. So I'm slinking in. She's doing her part, too, which surprised me at first but I so obviously fuckin' love it. It's been a long time since a single sentence has made desire so thoroughly flood through my body. And that very much helps with ye olde nagging fear of Rejection. The little bits- words, notions, suggestions- are helping me steel up, stand taller, drop the past and focus on here & now. It's working.

We're learning~



*monogamous in theory, of course. Not always in practice. ALL ARE TO BLAME!

Repast

Today, you are everywhere.

Actually, if anyone is looking for honesty, it's not just today. It's steady every-almost-day for the last however many days (16 or 4). It's the implanted, vibrating image of your curves. The paling softness of your thighs. The quiet motions, the gasping breath. Your words, even.

But today, right now: I have peeled off the barriers separating your skin from mine. It is winter, of course, and piles of clothing litter the floor around us. My bare feet are pushing against the hardwood floors, the fire is weakening, your breath is quick.

When I arch my hips ever so into yours, I hear your breath catch itself in your throat.

You don't try to hide it.

I am the one hiding things, but the transparency circling around us leads you to your own versions of my truths, anyway.

So unbelievably beautiful, these images I carry with me. Completely alluring.

You've made my thinking crowded.

In vino--- veritas

6:26 pm: Commence live-blogging of my night with plastic cups, wine, and maybe a Xanax because my neck still hurts and I can't seem to release its tension. I just purchased $63 of wine. No, I will not drink it all by myself in one night. See how I did that? Added that qualifier__ in one night. Amazing!
So here's what's going on. I'm dating myself. I've done this before; it's a great way to prepare myself for something/one. Not that I'm actively doing that. Slyly. Because the sky's cloudy. It's peppered with flecks of sunlight but I see lightning, too. Do I ever not speak in metaphors? I mean, seriously.a
For the record, I'm drinking out of a yellow plastic cup from Mama Kwan's in Kill Devil Hills, NC. Mama Kwan's is in Kill Devil Hills, that is. Not me. I'm in fucking blustery Northeast wherever.
Last night, I went to see Girlyman. Probably one of the most amazing Girly shows I've seen- and I've seen them, easily, 12 times. This is the fourth time I've seen them where I saw them last night, and I love it there because it's so incredibly small & therefore intimate. Love love love.
When I left, I realized I didn't want to talk to anyone. I was suppose to meet my friends, out. I didn't. I do that a lot. I went home instead and couldn't care less.

6:32 pm: My plastic cup is empty. I don't really wish I could say that my heart is empty. Because it's not. It's alive.

6:34 pm: Glass half-full; just killed the Blue Fish ... Riesling, I think. It was mostly killed from that night last week. The hot one. I don't think I drank any of it, then.
When I went to refill my glass NO MY CUP MY PLASTIC CUP, I found my black & white cat on top of the refrigerator. Convinced she was trying to steal my food. Asshole.

6:43 pm: I'm fine all day, I think of you at night. I. Love. Girlyman. When they played "Hey Rose" last night, which I totally quoted after aforementioned hotness of nights, Ty said: "This is my don't-knock-it-till-you-try- it song." KNEW IT. So appropo.

6:50 pm: Okay, let's talk about Vermont for a minute. "Everything's Easy" sometimes makes my heart jump a little, nothing major anymore. But I always think of Great Lakes when I hear this song. Obviously. I think it's really fucking great that I don't miss her. I also think it's really fucking great that I learned a lot from that relationship-- things that I will carry with me for a very long time.
What I find "not great" is the fact that my heart is so goddamn brittle. I don't particularly want to love anyone but that's almost a lie but anyway. Trust is a huge, huge thing for me now. I don't know how to trust anyone with my body, with my heart, with my anything. So I build these awesomely towering walls and push people off whenever they get too close to the top. I've done that a lot since, um, April. I don't really want to let anyone in. Okay, so that's a lie, too, but the truth: I don't want to let just anyone in.
What I also find "not great" is how I still want to punch that cunt directly in her lying psychotic face. Let it go, woman. Let it the fuck go.

6:58 pm: My plastic cup hath emptied itself. Again. I hope the next victim is cold enough for consumption.

7:10 pm: I finished the last bit of the Blue Fish-- which was actually a Pinot Grigio. Just opened the Yellow Tail Riesling. I think I preferred the Pinot.
Here's something I have some feelings about- this song: "Sleeping to Dream." It was played recently, after a night that I would like to call the Missed Opportunity of 2009 that Later Turned Into the Great Night of Holy Shit You Kiss Like You Mean It of a Few Days Later 2009. SO about that.
I have a lot of feelings about this, obvs, because I'm not suppose to have feelings about it, so of course I have feelings about it. That's how I roll, friends. That "not suppose to have feelings" part comes from a conversation that one or both parties may have muddied in the week that has passed due to wine and rationalization, however, it was said: No Feelings. Well guess what.
Wait, I have feelings about suppose. Is it supposed or suppose? I feel confused. Let's talk. I mean it. Not in that "we need to talk" doomsday way, but: let's talk. Let's lay it on the table with our hands (do you remember reaching for my hand?) and our words (we have plenty of those but mine tangle away whenever you're around but you talk a lot, especially after some wine, and I think that fucking rules I am sooo ordering a pizza in like 10 minutes). OH JESUS CHRIST GUESS WHAT JUST CAME ON MY iTUNES. I don't know why it's so hard to consider this
But back to my feelings about SLEEPING TO DREAM. I really liked waking up next to you. I liked waking up in those 2ish hours of sleep from near-daybreak to dawn when our arms were smashed together, sticking together actually, and I didn't want to peel away and you know what I don't think you did, either. Because you didn't.

7:17 pm: RT @TheDailyLove: If you want to move forward, forgive yourself, forgive them, accept that it happened, and learn from it & move. No moping.
Also: love Catie Curtis' "Strange."

7:31 pm: I want you. Yes, you. You know exactly who you are.

It's 7:44 pm and I'm drunk. DAMMIT! So. Want. Her. In. My. Bed. Right. Now. And may be drunk enough (hah not really) to text that.

8:02 pm: BBM from me to K --> Godfuckingdammit I **** **r
K responds: I know
I just ordered a pizza
HI DEEJ!!!!

8:14 pm: Eagles/Cowboys on the teevee behind me. Gino just Fbook im'd me re: my crush.
Let's talk about My Crush. She is beautiful. Singularly beautiful. She is such a ridiculously cool woman. We have a lot in common. We're compatible. I think she's wicked hot. I don't exactly know how she feels about me. I try super-hard to have zero expectations, and I do mostly okay with that, but listen, about those feelings: I cannot lie, here. I have feelings.

8:59 pm: Okay, everyone. I have consumed some pizza and decided that DEEJ and I are getting married, so I hope no one is offended by that. If you are, you better fucking speak up.
But, okay, truth: I cannot marry Deej when I so obviously want someone else. Deej, I adore you. And if things cease to exist between me & the Obscure Object, you know, we will fucking run away and be amazing together. :-)
I should stop drinking wine now because my stomach hurts already. WOW amateur.
But anyway, about those Feelings That I Said I Don't Have. I lied.
I was just told that if I didn't have feelings, I'd be a cold-hearted bitch. Which is for sure the truth, but the person that told me that doesn't know what I'm talking about, so...

Dear You:
I find you to be completely fucking amazing. I know you don't like hearing that- you seem to not know how to take compliments- but you are beautiful. Every inch of you: beautiful.
The parts of you that you don't like: beautiful.
I could, and will, luxuriate there all day/night/ever.
I wish you were here now.
Listen, seriously, I know I said I don't want feelings involved but I think you know I already have them. And I don't feel like hiding them. But I do because I'm doing this thing where I sit back and be "cool" while you process or do whateverthefuck it is but hang on my bff is here and she is kidnapping me so I have to go.

Dear 2009:

I am leaving you with a lot of feelings.

Some resolved, some freshly scratched open. Some aired out and blown into the fall and swirl of any day's breeze. Some tucked beneath my ribs, pushing against my heart, growing... sleeping... wandering. Pacing. Aglow. Some: still, untended, brittle at the core. & some have rushed up and out to hang in the air like a haze you don't exactly want to see through.

I already know two things. 1) This could be wickedly long, and 2) parts will be unceremoniously vague while others are clear to the point.

FEELINGS: Despondent. Heartbroken. Confused. Gradients of Sadness & Anger. [All resolved]
Perhaps the biggest chunk of 2009 was The Great Letting Go. Consider the break in November 2008- ripe and explosive before a string of holidays. Perfect! Tack on six months of back and forth, do we don't we, we really fucking should not, but maybe we almost could... until, finally, my backbone recalled itself and said: Fucking no, goodbye. Cue a week's worth of downward spiral including one extreme hallucination and terribly restless nights that led to sleeping on my desk at work. Most definitively not my finest hours, that week. Or, really, the first six months of 2009 = some of the roughest blurs of my 2009-life.

(That is what happens when you give three years of your life to someone who perhaps means well but truly cannot give you any shape of what you need because she is too consumed with her own demons.)

FEELINGS: Bright Spot. Intrigue. Want. [Tucked down for months]
In the middle of The Great Letting Go of 2009, there was February. Mixed messages. Music. The kind of held eye contact that makes your palms sweat. Suggestion. Intoxicated flirting. Growing awareness of the simplest connections. Plain & simple curiosity. I knew I wanted her and didn't have the words or actions to show it outside of a wine-induced comment that fluttered then shot from my ribs, out my mouth, into the air, into her ears.

FEELINGS: Achievement. Forward-motion. Validation. Total Awesomeness. [FINALLY]
March took me to Tampa. Tampa took me to USF. Kate Bornstein. Gender/Sex skews. FC, SW, LP. A very healthy & happy few days of relaxation with B&L. On a whim, my submission "for fun" turned into presentation & future publication. It also catapulted me into reassessing my future in the education world, and where I want to go. I still don't know where I want to go, or how I want to get there, but without this experience, I don't know that I'd have the motivation to change course.

FEELINGS: China blue. Want. [Tucked down for months]
Minutes. Literally, minutes. Less than five. It was the quickest reminder of "Oh, right... want." Thank you, end of May. Circles, and circles, circles again. Circles, and circles, got to stop spinning

FEELINGS: Possibility. Curiosity. Want? Hope. [Here & gone]
Enter several women. My ins & outs of March-September. I thought I wanted each of them more than I actually did. Call it healing, call it fooling myself, call it Time. If I had been ready, for any of them, I imagine it would have happened. I count 5. If we tack on the currently-unresponded-to-email I received today, make it 6. As I type, 2 more linger in the backdrop. I have learned to push like a professional... pusher. There are times when I want to beat myself up over this, but I have learned that it's not happening with these women because I don't want it to. Not a one of them is who I want to be with on any level outside of friendship. I tried. I did. I was entirely aware of what I was doing and how I was feeling. I've been honest and cognizant. But you can't create a spark when your match won't ignite.

FEELINGS: Freedom. The Wander. Love, Life, Living. [Continuing ad infinitum~]
The Summer of 2009 was one of the best summers I have ever had. Point blank; there's no fancy way to phrase that. I was spontaneous, happy, unbridled, and hungry for life. Rehoboth (recall the bruise on my spine from the railing on the deck). Dewey Beach. San Diego. Pine Island. Richmond. Outerbanks. I lived my life. I got an incredible tan, did not work out as much as I should, read books, whittled time away by staring at nature. It was perfection, and I absolutely did not want it to end.

FEELINGS: Rapture. [Tucked]
It had been months, and at first glance, every muscle tightened and I dared myself to look away. But I couldn't. A few weeks later, time was on my side, and while the fire glowed and the marshmallows and sticks burned, I reveled in the simplicity of good friends. My want stayed safely inside. It was the best place for it.

FEELINGS: Absence. Second-guessing. The Final Push in Letting Go. [Resolved]
Fall has never been much on my side. 2009 was no different. Fall beats me up, chews around, spits me out in pieces that I'm left to string together in a semblance of The Real Me. I survive fall. This fall, I pushed so many people away. I just wanted to be alone. Quite honestly, much of October and November are a blur of going through the motions (however, I did run my first 5k somewhere in there) and a few too many Friday-after-school beers. I entered this strange period of self-loathing and didn't want much to do with anything or anyone. There were Bright Spots tangled amid other bouts of confusion, but overall, fall failed me. Or I failed it.

I'm glad it's winter.

FEELINGS: Spinal. Guttural. Rushes to the head. [Loved & Over but Present]
I have a dirty habit of not getting mad, of not feeling or directing my anger. This was pointed out to me somewhere in 2009, probably in its early stages. I got mad about the fact that I don't get mad. How meta. Despite my overabundance of them, I love feelings. To realize that I was not capitalizing on the most powerful of feelings was a good kick in the ass. In November or December, I got really fucking mad. And I unleashed. I do not like it when people do not listen to me, but only hear me. You need to fucking listen to my words. Someone didn't, and someone heard all about it. The surge of anger was tipping my nerves into sunshine, and I felt so goddamn alive. There was no holding back; every last bit came out.

It was the first time I'd yelled in probably years. Perhaps some of the anger was misdirected [Great Lakes never got yelled at, and if anyone should bear the fire of my ire, it would be her but that is a lost cause of imperceptible proportions] but most of it was justified. Weeks later, the same person pissed me off, and my spine straightened. It was fucking amazing, and I am never bending again.

FEELINGS: Gratitude. Safety. Love. Stomach-aching Laughter. [Endless~]
One thing that has been made perfectly clear to me throughout 2009 is that I have amazing people in my life. My family is entirely supportive & loving of all my pitfalls and strengths, and my friends are saints for putting up with my over-thinking bullshit. Having been untangled from a controlling relationship, my freedom to do whatever with whomever (and not have to lie about it in order to avoid a fight) has taken over. My internal hermithood may never evaporate, but I don't think I've ever been this social in my life. And the truth is... I enjoy it. Granted, it makes the lay-low-at-home days that much more meaningful. I do not ever again want to lose sight of the goodness that exists in my life. It can be enhanced, absolutely, but I have no reason to not be happy with what I have. That feeling, that recognition-- irreplaceable.

FEELINGS: Peace. Appreciation. Clarity? Hope. [Here... hopefully to stay]
Continuing from the Gratitude, I think it's important to express the feeling of peace I am at with my life. I've not felt peaceful in years. Part of that is due to my constant interaction with women. Dating, relationships, dalliances, whatever. By the beginning of December 2009, I was wholly unattached and very much at peace with it. Am I willing to explore something with someone? Absolutely. Just don't disturb my peace~

FEELINGS: Want. Surprise. Comfort. Warmth. Curiosity. Release. Hot. [...processing]
Truth: I did not expect to end 2009 in this way. My patience had taken over the best of me.

When you are with me, I tend to lose focus. My tongue takes its own trek with words, and my mind flows over and above the conversation dribbling between us. But I was on par that night. The previous two? Not so much. But that night, yes, I was exactly where I wanted to be. It appears that you were, too. Thank you, winter.

It's a want that has tightened my nerve-endings for quite some time. Fulfilling that want... I don't know that I have the words, but perhaps this will do for now: the strongest memory is my mouth, your mouth, moving together, your head lifting ever so from the pillow. One of my hands in your hair. The other hand meeting your hand, your fingers lacing through mine. That is the image cemented in my mind. There are many other sweeps of recall from that night, and you already know I remember everything (though I admit: parts of conversation are hazy), and I could go on with descriptions and images but I don't want to. I want this tucked beneath my ribs with the surges & sparks that follow the memories. I want to keep it safe. Honestly: I don't know how to write it. I do know that you are fucking beautiful, and my want continues.

FEELINGS: Closure. [AMAZING!]
2009 was, kindly, a learning experience. To emerge from the year without new battle wounds is a huge achievement. I've healed, processed, moved forward. I know myself, now, better than I have in a very long time. And I'm comfortable with who I am. I don't put up with bullshit or crazy. I take care of me on a daily basis. I breathe deeply and completely. While I may never stop over thinking, I at least have learned to better compartmentalize my wayward thought processes. I don't feel the need for anything, but I continue to want. My priorities are (relatively) clear. I have had these incredible bursts of awareness & happiness amid the general peace of my life. I am well.


So, thanks 2009, for all the feelings. You've given me a lot to work with. & as I write this, 2010 looms less than 12 hours away. I'm ready for it; I know it will be good to me as long as I am good to it.

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.

Tonight:

All you need to do, now, is send this simple word: Yes.

And if you do that, I will be there in less than 10 minutes.

Shameless because I want you more than I can say, and it's edged into something I can only show. With my hands, my mouth-- my words are secondary, missiles for a steady war of desire. I can't help it. I've tried. I can't.

I want you, you you, want, want: You.

It could be slow. I could kiss you with such sweetness, I could strip your layers one by one, seep into your body and melt into you.

Or it could be fast. (I generally think this is how it would be because I have been holding this in for so long.) Furtive. Passionate. Purposeful. Goal-oriented, and the goal is to fuck you until you can't think, breathe, feel. & all you can see is us.

To fuck you would be simple. To make love to you-- something entirely different, and:

I would be happiest with either.

This is our earthquake

Today, you are on my bed. Your shirt is a river drowning my fingers. Your body is moving above me- unusual- and your breath is quick, your lips and tongue snug and searching with mine. I am splayed beneath you, urgent with my own desires.

I want you naked, I know this. I still do not know what remains to be discovered beneath these protective layers: I have seen glimpses, flashes of skin, suggestions, and implications. I have seen the desire trapped between my ribs, sparking from my eyes, masked in curious fear in your belabored glances. I have felt the tremors of touch- and it has never been enough.

I want to ravish you. I want you to come back for more. Again, again, again.

The words & images are so thick today. I can't concentrate. There are thirty-two other things I should be doing right now, but instead I am sitting at my desk, wrapped in visions of no one but you.

...can you hear me?

these things

i want you here, to rest between my words
and to arch between my hands.
the weary path of secret signals
threads around the spaces between us.
and there is nothing within
save for passing thought
and the heady complexity
of trespassed desire.

so simple, so finite,
so thorough and thick.
i do not wish to coat this desire
with lies and presupposed suggestion.
i think you should know
this want? this yen?
this tireless repeat of your skin
flushed with mine, wrapped beneath
the lifting air of sunset, sunrise,
midday, evening: everywhere?

you and i:
maybe we should.

this will go unsent.

I won't burden you with specifics, but here's the truth: I'm fucking crazy about you.

I'm not going to belabor my point with citing how long I've felt this way (longer than I'd like to admit) or how it came to be (slow, then with the speed of an undammed waterfall) or what I'd like you to say in response (ok, alright, me too, or not but it doesn't change a thing, it changes everything- for the better, for what we could be).

Years, actually.

Initially, that animal attraction swiped me, cut me. I saw you and I thought: Wow. I'd tell you this, but your reactions to things are so unpredictable, and I can barely say "hi" without stuttering and/or turning a fierce shade of the blush family when I see you, so maybe you'll read this and understand, but I bet not. The reading part. I think you'd understand. You would if you wanted to.

and i was brave / but you didn't know

weeks ago, i went to see melissa ferrick.
and i feel in love with her opening act. it was easy
because she was self-deprecating and had a beautiful voice, lyrics
that flittered past skin-deep, penetrating pieces of fragments of my shattered
everything where nothing
could make sense but sense itself.

tonight is a night, for me, full of riesling and xanax
because i cannot clear my mind but more importantly
my jaw is throbbing and there is no escape
because every time i stop myself from clenching my teeth
i think of you
and then i clench again
and the pattern continues, unlocking all my memories
and all the could-bes and maybe might still becomes.
but i know you don't want me as i want you
and even if you do
the way you hide it could shake me for years (as i guess it
already has), decimate my every caustic sense, the things that
work and the ideas that float. and my skin
floats, my hands are full of helium and i have misplaced
my legs. i don't care past the image of you and me,
the rattled, makeshift escalated chorus of coulds and woulds.

and this is my right now.
this perpetual itching ache, the daggers deflecting my heart,
and the unsteady waiver of my hands, hours later.
because they shook for forty-three minutes after i told you
that we were writing poems in class, and it would be quiet. you were hiding (my
face to yours, our palms barely reaching- we are
so terrifyingly alike that it breaks me apart and rips me into shape-shifting
glued shards of you[me] who this is and who we want to be) and your presence
was visceral, tangible, a veritable shake
to the core, i cannot stop drinking this wine even though
my heart
has returned to my chest's cavity, to its rightful place,
limping back from its sometime residence near my toes.
i cannot tell if my heart:
does it soar or does it fall,
dilating and storming through my body at the mere shock
of seeing you before me.

i do not yet understand
what exactly it is about you-
if it IS something or if this is a magical prelude
i have designed in my psyche, an occupation away
from the dismantling servitude of reality. maybe i write
best when i am drunk on riesling and high on xanax, and maybe i write
just as terribly well when i am trembling in syntax
of maybe-love and could-be more than lust.

i have the right idea
but i cannot whisper its fragments into your ear
because we cannot get close enough to see
what all there is we harbor.

my boat is sanctioned in the deepest of lakes;
your yacht sings solo softly in the saturated sea.
we could meet in the middle, not your ground nor
mine. we could spin, there, ribbons of fairytale
and dip our toes into the dazzling wisps of water.
i could swim in you for days.

you startle my senses.
i have broken pens and letters over this deaf infatuation.
i was told to exorcise you from me. exorcise the demons, you wicked
angel. i laughed today.
and my god, your body. your rounding, warming, malleable form.

i cannot recall my first name because this person at the keyboard
is not who i think i ever am.

i said today that i would make you a powerpoint:
"reasons why you should love me." but love is deceit.
love you, i would. adore you, i would.
the powerpoint would have pictures, and i would write you
a poem.
because the obvious amount of poems that i have already crafted
for you is not obvious, because you don't know of them.
which, i guess, is why i told you today:
"come down. it's quiet. we write."
you didn't come down, and i knew you wouldn't, but it's for the best
because forty-three minutes later:
my hands still shook and my breath still evaded me
as my heart thumped into my ankles
and i wish i could tell you.

you're something beautiful / a contradiction

I had a healthy dose of Real Friends today, enclosing a few minutes with formerly mentioned not-so-real friends. [Also, those minutes? That's where I made a totally snarky comment directed at the married-friend who is shtupping her lesbian BFF, and my best friend's girlfriend nearly choked on her laughter and it went so over everyone else's heads, but oh so worth it.] SO it's good to see my Real Friends that can hang out without being drunk. Not-So-Real Friends? Yup, in line several times at the beer tent. Cheers.

And I saw AC today. She walked past us, in all her cuteness, and leaned over, smiled, waved. I swooned internally, smiled and waved back. She was "working" ... and I thought about going over to chat, but walked around for a few hours with my friends instead. Eventually, we were standing twentyish feet from where AC was working, and it was hot, and we didn't want to walk anymore, so we stayed there. & commence good friending, as they were delighting me with "She just looked over here. She keeps looking over here" and the like. Which was super, you know, because it's always fun to even think you're being admired/checked out/whatev. But I am a nerd/social-awk of a slight degree, and I was getting nervous just thinking about going to talk to her.

Truth is, I sucked it up. I'm tired of letting opportunities pass by, on any level, because of holding myself back. Out of what? Fear of something good happening? I've done nothing in my life to deserve nothing but shit, but until I start acting in a positive manner and taking little (healthy) risks here and there, nothing's going to change.

I walked right over and gave her a dazzling smile, which was dazzlingly returned (she has an amazing smile, the kind that warms your insides, and she has stellar eyes, incomparable, to match). And we chatted, her opening with: "I keep seeing you everywhere lately!" [Well that's a good thing, yeah?] It was so simple, I wanted to kick myself, repeatedly, in the ass. Totally natural flow, got some good info, opened up, ta-fucking-da. She then offered me a massage (here's where I explain that she is an on-off-again massage therapist, which is how I originally met her // she worked with my sister, and I actually worked there for a bit as well // and she was giving chair massages today, hence the offer), and of course I accepted because A) why would I ever turn one down?, and B) her offer to put her hands all over my neck and back? Um, yes please!

& then there was that. Which was fantastic. Small talk, of course, is hard when your face is smashed into the little face-holder on a massage chair/table. She joked around with me, and I was able to laugh, kind of. Joke/flirt. I think? So dense, here. So terribly dense. Post-massage, she gave me that damn sparkling smile and said, "I hope it was good for you." See, I don't generally fall for lines like that, and I already knew from years ago that AC is a wicked flirt (and she is damn good at it), but it still made me go a little 'Oooh yeah.' Cue more flirty small talk, ending with her saying, "I'm sure I'll see you soon," and a most wonderful tight, few-extra-second hug.

& I may or may not have fallen in love. HAH. Just kidding, really. I may fall easily, but it takes a little more than that.

At any rate, cue the reignition of my little crush on AC. It's a healthy little bugger. The thought of her makes me smile, blah blah blah. Just a crying fucking shame we never went out all those years ago. Who's to say we couldn't now? I mean, obviously, I'd have to formally extricate myself from my girlfriend, who has cut me off of communication with her because I am pms'ing and being "out of control," which just means she's seeing that I'm unhappy with Us but doesn't want to face it. I like that one of my real-friends (ah! the one that I dated a few years ago and now has the girlfriend and I finally did see them today, and it was actually lovely, except said girl and I still maybe feel the attraction, but whatever, tolerable) just said: "Don't let your girlfriend be an asshole to you." And my response: "I'm the asshole now, sadly."

Oh what the fuck am I doing.


[And I forgot about the part when she pushed her sunglasses off of her eyes and onto the top of her head because, she said, she doesn't like talking to people while wearing sunglasses (they or her) because you can't see where they're looking and all of a sudden I realize she cared where we were looking. & when she took off those sunglasses, & there was a maddening airtight lock of stare, I think I remembered why I'd liked her so years ago. Some people I used to know used to tell me that they could get lost in my eyes, and I never understood what they meant, but when she took of the sunglasses and our yellow-green // Caribbean blue recognized each other, I think I felt lost- in the most satisfying, intriguing of ways.]

i will show how i take casual & embellish into:

Heartsick is not among my favorite
feelings. Nor is sadness due to the inability
to have the one I want, nor a billowing sheath
of perpetual lovelust wonder.
I gave you my words, scrawled out in the heat
of the night, darkness pressing onto my curved
back and curiousity swallowing my swollen heart.
The envelope skittered onto your desk and I had turned
away before I realized that you had picked it up,
cut it open, absorbed the delicately threaded words (much as
you have done to me without the slightest awareness).
You came after me,
calling my name quietly,
meeting my stationary form in the dusty damp hallway.
You thanked me, a deliriously serious and heartfelt
gaze decorating your face, and our bodies came together
in one sweet casual moment,
fitting perfectly
as I've known and worried they would.

Won't you come and stay

No / yes / no

I dreamt of segue and transition, all the things we've lacked for five years. Off/on, pressure points blasted by full throttle passion. Yes/no/yes- you've never made up your mind. I broke the word happy over our restless flesh, the sweat drawing tension on my tattooed back. The word rained down like petulant raindrops; a midday reprieve from thunder-dance and you need space.

Where we pay homage to each verb tense, we rest easily in the past. We did, we were, it was, we had. I was. You were. We aren't.

This is a transference of desire. A repetition of never-could-be. Bad timing. Nothing wrong, and that's what's right/wrong.

I could stay here with you forever and be content.

Your mouth stole my lips, my breath, my wary response. The silence robbed my sarcasm, my witty heart-hidden reply. Your fingers pushing through my hair, small brown eyes shut against the glare of sunshine showering over us. I have no remedy for the sickness that's eaten us, the cataclysmic notion that we could be anything more than what we've already been (disaster).

A gold star, a lick of communication. A first.

I have no strings to bind your hands. You won't let me fuck up.

I saw her this morning, and all I could think of was you.
I can't believe I just admitted that.

Keep with me forward, all through the night

You've infiltrated this house, leaving
fibers of indecency smattered with lust-
I smell you as I walk through the rooms,
a literal fucking ghost meeting me with each pace. I'd be angry
if it meant we'd fallen in love.
You spat the marriage word again, a familiar
intonation of the much-repeated wish to keep
me, tie me down, not let
anyone else have me. But that's not how you mean it.
You don't want me for love,
we want each other for lust. There would be others,
you explain over your naked torso and my lazy fingertips.
Us, and others. Together and separate, all at once and
never at all. For a moment, I think I could
play house with you:
house with a revolving door for our egos and our libidos,
house with an unspoken but laughed about connection.
We didn't get it together years ago, and we won't get it together
now, but where there is nothing to lose,
there cannot be loss.



(i like what we have become/your hands crushing into me/my tongue scalding over you/our naked breasts to our naked backs/you buy dinner/i buy breakfast)

We only ever do the same things twice

A slow waking. I wake to sleep and I take my waking slow.

There's no mystery anymore. We dissolved it months ago, put it all on the table and massaged away the ugly remnants of things that should have never been. And so now, the words lie evenly, surrender slowly. We make sense. I know you (how/ time // resolved fascination, and I just do). I like it just as it is.

A lazy day [productively lazy with laundry, grocery shopping, tying up of loose ends, filing taxes, going to read for class] restores the soul.

Our latest conversations sit sweetly in my brain. Nothing more, nothing less. It just is.

I stood my ground this week and was, somehow, subsequently rewarded. Thing is, I'm not a doormat. Maybe I was, in that stifling debilitating "former life," but I've outgrown those roots and settled into something less malleable. One of my whimsical fantasies came to life. Fantasy/wish. Semantics.

Day to day, I watch things fall apart around me. Lack of will, lack of want, overabundance of lack of care. A desire for destruction.

You may never change // I already have.