The words burn my mouth

You bit me and you don’t even know it. You pierced my shield of practiced detachment, and the chemicals between us give my legs contradictory intentions. I want to be sweet on your lips. I want to emerge from this cold, dark corner. To forget, just once, that everyone I care about eventually leaves.

It’s Wednesday afternoon. I’m sitting on a sunlit carpet in the den, listening to your accent, shaking my head. Things are stirring, shifting in their own imperceptible way. You didn’t like me enough to say so a year ago, but now, on a random mid-January afternoon, you call to whisper in my ear, “You’re lovely. Did you know that?”

But what do you want? Something that smells like cedar and old books, comfortable and well-worn. Perhaps a giant black bowl of stars, spilled across a huge, wild moon. I can give you all of it. I can give you more than you ever even knew you desired. I just need a swift jolt of something like blazing courage. A reason to shrug off the fear and edge forward – into us.

I want open windows and cool, rich air. Music and moonbeams streaming through my fingers. I want a man who says, “Let me in. I promise to be the first and the last.” I want the inflection that makes 3 am fatigue fall off. Deep breaths of shimmering honesty, true tears, fidelity. And a tone that says do-not-fuck-with-me-my-heart-is-on-the-line.

I want someone to trust.

But I can’t stop working so hard for approval. I’m uncomfortable in my own skin. I’m afraid to tell you the things you need to know. Because I’m afraid to be loved. If the poison hasn’t yet been injected, I’ll plant it there myself.

I don’t know if it’s even possible to have a relationship with someone you’ve never held, someone whose fingers have never traced your jawline. But the thought of it sends something through me so intoxicating, so fine, that it hurts. Each time I think about it, a long, low sigh ripples through the room. An angel passes by.

The words burn my mouth, seeping from the back of my throat – like you – threatening to involuntarily empty me at any given moment.

• • •

Special thanks to Michael Xavier for pushing me, and helping to shape this piece.

Unaccountable happiness

I woke up this morning with the promise of the first snow inside my chest. My heart is light. I can’t stop smiling. It’s just the perfection of it, really. The fragile, enchanting detail of a cold, gray morning dissipating into blue skies and smooth stones. Of watching it unfurl in my hand. Today is worn shiny, and inlaid with years of mindless daydreams. Can you feel it?

Every salvaged scrap is potent and magical. I’m actually savoring right now. Soaking up a wistful blend of chamomile and sandalwood, letting it sink into my subconscious. It’s so unlike me. And yet …

I’m in the woods, surrounded by the birth of winter. A fresh dressing of ice decorates the pines and crunches under my feet. I smell the balsam as though it’s the first time all over.

Here’s what matters: Without any particular evidence, but with certainty, everything – everything – is right.

Those barely perceptible fissures in the smooth surface don’t bother me today. Cigarette in hand, I sit in the snow with the dog, looking up without greed. Right now, I refuse to fix what is broken.

Today is the kind of buoyant day that encourages extravagance. I am pathetically, almost tearfully, grateful. And determined to burn each moment in my mind before it shrivels up and blows away like strands of smoke.

Plots and ambitions can wait until tomorrow. Today, I promise to be a normal, sane, non-horrible human. And I am resolute to ruin his perfectly good sulk – with two words and no shirt.