17He smells like a cologne I can’t name and like oxygen, if oxygen had a smell, and like passion and love and the sea at night. I keep trying to place it, but I can’t.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
He gets this look on his face when he’s thinking and, I swear, he’s solving the mysteries of the universe. I don’t even know if he knows how to articulate it, but I ask him anyway.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
His voice sounds like the most comfortable bed you’ve ever slept in; like you’re in a palace sleeping on a down pillow and Egyptian cotton sheets. It’s wide and warm and sometimes when he speaks I have to close my eyes so I can take it in without distractions. Just in case he decides to impart the knowledge of the mysteries of the universe he’s solved.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
It sometimes amazes me how pale he is. Skin so translucent and thin you can see the blue of the veins protruding. You can feel the ridges of his ribs, the curve of his hips, the still slight stubble even though he shaved two days ago and he really should have more than that. As I run my fingers over his body, skimming over his scars, he closes his eyes and sighs softly.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
He tastes like the last cigarette he smoked before sneaking back into bed, hoping that I don’t notice that he stole my key so he could get back in. He tastes like the original frozen yogurt he just finished eating; the one with one fruit topping because, really, why alter the taste of something that’s already so good? He tastes like a smile and like desire and he’s warm, so warm, but the mint of his gum is a shocking cold. He tastes, looks, smells, feels, sounds like so many things I can and can’t name but none of them are right. We trade pensive glances between tastes and I can tell he’s analyzing something, too.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
“You.”
i want to feel
your weight on me
the warmth of your skin on my skin
the scratch of your five o’clock shadow as you kiss down
down
downwards
i want to hear
the ecstasy in your voice when i touch you
your gasp when i touch you
your want when i touch you
right
there
i want to see
the look in your eyes because you want me too and i
am
yours
i want to see
the red lines on your bare torso
the marks i made on my territory because you
are
mine
i want
you
I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately. I’ll hear something or see something or someone’s voice will have just the right inflection and the memories come rushing back like I’ve opened the floodgates.
I wish I could flood my mind. Put all of the good memories in an ark, have Noah line them up 2 by 2, and wash away all of the bad. Start over in this world inside my head. I wish I could erase you, but you’re written in ink. Tattooed on my mind. I can still hear the way you talked to me, feel the stares that made me sick to my stomach. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I remember your touch, even though it’s almost infuriatingly distant now. Like a radio playing in another room, loud enough that you can tell it’s on but too soft to make out any of the words.
Yes, memories of you and the damage you caused, some of it irreparable, are tattooed on my brain. On the inside of my eyelids. Across my forehead in invisible ink. I might as well wear a neon sign, blinking the word that I think over and over again:
“Damaged… Damaged… Damaged…”
My body is covered with tattoos of you. But I’ve been hiding for too long. Shutting myself off, staying alone in the dark. And everybody knows the best way to get tattoos to fade is to spend time in the sun.
So I will. I’ll bathe myself in sun. In light. In good. After that flood that washes you away, I’ll release the dove from my ark and, when it comes back, I’ll know that I can start again.
I woke up alone again today, my love.
I don’t know what I was expecting.
I suppose I was expecting this.
It’s just
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Yes, dear
No, dear
I miss you so, dear
etc.
etc.
Forgive me—
it’s all
coming out wrong
Too fast
yet too slow
concentrated
Like water leaking out of a crack in a cup
You don’t notice it and then
All at once
The cup is empty
and the table
is
covered
With a blanket
a sheet
of water
I was covered
by a blanket
a blanket
a sheet
No comfort in that comforter
Drinking coffee
Tea
Scribbling frantically
Words pouring out
like
w
a
t
e
r
Letters like raindrops
I’m sorry I never sent your letter
Dear love,
I hope this finds you well.
i just thought you should know
that
i’m sliding backwards
and
i don’t want to say it’s your fault
but
you certainly didn’t help
so
next time you want to pour acid on me
and
let it eat through my soul
with
that tongue of yours
that
cuts me more
than
any blade just remember
that—
please remember
that—
i love you
and
if my words have power
then
so do yours
and
i’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable
but
i’m uncomfortable too
so
letmeit
us
go
I’ve really come a long way, she thinks, looking down from the top of the mountain she’s just climbed. As the wind beats against her unblemished cheeks, pink from the cold, she thinks back one, two, three, four, five, six, seven years ago and revels in how far she’s come and what she’s accomplished since then. Some wisps of hair have come loose from her ponytail and she goes to smooth them down but then thinks better of it. She lets them fly loose, allowing an imperfection to show. Just another way she’s grown.
She knows that years ago she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish this. That her fears would have stopped her before she even started. They almost stopped her this time, to be fair. She almost said no when the others asked her to come along on this trip, joking and laughing as they discussed how early they were going to be leaving the following morning. It seemed so easy for them to make the decision, to try and experience something new, to let themselves feel so completely. But she decided to go and now, standing at the peak with them, she lets herself feel just the tiniest bit of pride.
Still, she thinks that if they looked at her in the right light and at the right angle, if they got close and really looked, her cheeks wouldn’t seem so unblemished. Even here, having accomplished what they did, they’d be able to see the tear stains that never completely washed away. She tries not to let them get that close. Instead, she takes a deep breath, feeling the cold mountain air enter her lungs, and smiles to herself. I’ve really come a long way, she thinks.
Follow me to the seaside, my love. With a boat and a map we can sail anywhere and nowhere and everywhere in between. What’s that, my love? You’ve never been in a boat, you say. The sea is too wide and vast and it frightens you, you say. What if the ship sinks? What if our map is wrong? To that, my love, I respond that I don’t know.
There are many things I do not know the answer to, my love. I have never sailed a boat before. The expansiveness of the sea frightens me, too. Staring out over the vast blue I feel so small and insignificant. I am afraid of the ship sinking. I am afraid of having no way to get to land. I am afraid that our map could be wrong and we could end up in Greenland instead of Greece but, my love, is that not half the fun? The adventure?
Besides, dearest, when I am with you I am much more certain. It is true that I have never sailed a boat before, but I am willing to try for you. I am afraid of the sea and how small it makes me feel, but with you I do not feel so small and insignificant. Our map may be wrong, but being with you, my love, is only ever right. What does it matter where we end up as long as we end up there together? The journey, my love, is the destination.
Is my whole more than the sum of my (body) parts? she asks herself every day. Face up to your problems, they say. What, can’t you stomach the truth? they ask. Arm yourself against the world. Get a leg up in your career. Get your foot in the door. Be ready to lend a helping hand. Don’t put your nose where it doesn’t belong. it’s too ethnic anyway so if you think it belongs anywhere at all you’re wrong so when all anybody ever talks about is her body and what she should do with it and where she should put it and how she should use it and all she sees is what she should look like and what she should be and how far she is from that is it any wonder that she’s so fucked up? That she doesn’t own mirrors or scales anymore because she’s afraid to look at either of them to see what they tell her? That every time she eats she feels guilty and wants to throw up but is too fucking scared? That she doesn’t wear makeup because what’s the point it’s not like it’s going to help because she’s so ugly and she thinks she knows that it’s not going to fool anyone? So you think body image issues are superficial?
Superficial my ass.
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” she asks, sitting on the bed fastening her red heels. The ones she knows he likes and she likes them too because they make her feel sexy and powerful. He leans against the wall opposite her and examines the curve of her back as she bends over, letting her continue to talk. “I’ve never been able to fathom it when that happens.”
She stands and wobbles a bit, adjusting to her new height and the difference in balance that comes with suddenly being two inches taller. She feels a bit lightheaded and she’s not sure if it’s because she stood up too fast or because of the way he’s looking at her. “I mean, when things happen exactly the right way and you find someone who’s just… right.” She practices walking around the room a bit to get her posture just right, carefully avoiding looking in the mirror on the door. She’d rather let his gaze be the mirror, so she meets his eyes, still boring into her from his spot against the wall.
“Think of how many coincidences have to happen,” she says, still looking at him, not willing to be the one to lose the staring contest. She thinks, amazedly, that they have the same color eyes. She’s never met anyone who has her color eyes.
He clears his throat and finally speaks. “It’s insanity,” he tells her. “It really is.” He looks at her as though seeing her for the first time. It’s not that she looks that different with hair and makeup done, fancy dress on, heels giving her legs definition he didn’t know was possible. It just enhances her. Everything that makes her what she is. It’s like she’s under a microscope and he can see every detail so clearly and at the same time he can see how all of those details make up the whole. But her whole is so much more than the sum of her parts. And she can see that that’s what he sees and he wonders if that’s the reason for this conversation.
“The odds are infinitesimal that it should ever happen to anyone,” she continues, still feeling like she’s under that microscope but not really minding being magnified into infinity as long as it’s an infinity she can share with him.
They speak in unison. “Let alone to me.”
The shock of speaking at the same time stuns both of them into silence momentarily. And then she gives one of those giant laughs, the kind he loves, the kind where her smile lights up the room. And he smiles too, grinning from ear to ear, and smiling even more because he knows she likes his smile. And she grabs his hand and they go out the door, still laughing, still smiling, still lightheaded, still wobbling slightly.
I want to be creative. I want to feel words and imagery and beauty pouring from my fingertips. I want everything I write to be bathed in splendor. To be able to bask in the knowledge that I did that. I created something. Something good. Something beautiful. Something worth reading, commenting about, and knowing. I want people to want my work. To want a deeper understanding of it and of the person who wrote it. I want to know that my words mean something. I want to see them lift off the page and imprint themselves on a soul instead. I want to be remembered for it. For pouring my heart into my work and for my work to pour itself into someone’s life. I want an idea that will change the world. Maybe not the world. Maybe just a person. Maybe just me. I want to be bigger. Stronger. More expressive. I want to use words as weapons and as comforters. I want to have mastery of this language. To be able to make it say what I want it to say when I want to say it. I don’t want to pause, searching for the right word or expression. I want it to be effortless. I want inspiration. I want to be filled with the light of ideas and questions and pondering and I want to write it down. Feel the pen in my hand or the keys under my fingertips. I want my fingertips to be calloused from typing my thoughts and ideas the way someone else’s would be from playing the guitar. I want my fingers to bleed because of the intensity and speed of my thoughts. I want to think and have so many ideas that my fingers can’t move fast enough to put them down on paper. I want it to be my work that people read and wonder at. I want to make people laugh. Cry. Shout. Feel. I want to make them feel. I want to make them care. About something. Anything. I want to impassion minds. And hearts. And spirits. I want my words to make people tremble because they can’t express themselves. I want my words to make people confident that they can express themselves. I want to be expressive. I want to figure out how to put my thoughts into words. To paint with words the vivid colors and images that are constantly floating around in my mind. I want to make the pages explode the way I feel like I will sometimes. I want every image I see to pour forth from my pen and come alive in a way they never have before. I want to know the words for the things I think. I want to think of the words for the things I know. I want to believe and share and give. I want others to believe what I say and take it in. I want it to soak into their brains and souls. I want to affect people. Change people. Make the world different. Make myself different. I want everything I write to come out of me as effortlessly as this is. Is that possible? Probably not. Writing something of value takes time. Effort. Real ideas. Thoughts of fantasy worlds that I can see, but not create. I see them so vividly, so clearly in my mind. Why is it so hard to translate? Why can’t I just say what I’m thinking? I live in this wonderful, beautiful, insane world. My thoughts are wonderful and beautiful and insane. I am wonderful and beautiful and insane. I want to be wonderful and beautiful and insane. I want my words to be wonderful and beautiful and insane. I want my life to be wonderful and beautiful and insane. I want to feel that way. I want to be seen that way. I want to write that way. Talk that way. Give that way. I want to be contagious. I want my passion to spread. Extend like ripples in a pond. Beautiful and soft. Like an earthquake, loud and impossible to ignore. I want to be noticed. I want to fade into the background. I want my words to be remembered forever, even if my name is forgotten. I want to make something of worth. Something valuable. Something you can’t get anywhere else. I want my words to be as passionate as I am. I want to make others as passionate as I am. I want to be an individual. To break out of this confining, dark box that society is trying to put me in. I want to break others free of the box. To color outside the lines. To teach other people to color outside the lines. Color the sun blue if you want. Make the grass red. Be purple. Be a rainbow. Be a scribble. Be something they don’t want you to be. Be something they DO want you to be. But only if that something is something you want to be. Don’t let their words define your world. Let your words define your world. Make your own dictionary. On your terms. I want to write my own dictionary. Color myself the way I want to be seen. Put colors into my words that nobody has ever seen before. Describe shapes that aren’t in the vocabulary. Describe people with personalities too big to fit on the page. I want to cry. Scream. Lash out. Be heard. Be silent. Be everything. Be nothing. Be loud. Be quiet. Be something. Someone. Write something. Anything. I want to be myself. I want to figure out who myself is. I want a choice. I want my voice heard. I want to live.
