Body Count Contested
We sat next to each other, facing the plant.
"That leaves us alone again," V__ said. "And I can see you're none too happy about that."
He put two fingers on my right shoulder like it was an abdomen he was about to palpate, with his elbow behind my neck.
"How many years I know you?" he says. "The rings on our tree would be a good foot round," he says. Hard to tell if his fingers want to lick me or stick me. I think if I had bowling ball holes right there on my shoulder he'd insert three and throw me at the wall. He'd look me in the eye first.
He goes on: "All these years - the rings on our fingers - and sometimes I sit here when we sit here and am afraid to touch you at all. And it is like first touching a new lover. Before. I see you with the eyesight of grave desire."
"What."
"When hunger is up eyesight is thick with it. Like semen is the medium light passes through, and everything is the surface of desire. And when it happens between us, like now, I see you through these semen-swollen eyes, in this light thickened by my own biological sea. And you - years and years between us - two rings surrounding us - I catch a glimpse of your cleavage, of your ass's curve, of the blood beating in your neck, of the tiniest part of the corner of your eye or mouth, of your thigh, of your shadow, of the movement of the dress that hangs in the doorway swaying after you've passed by it - a glimpse of your most recent absence - and I feel the 10 year old boy I was, squatting on the mound above the field, when below my feet I caught a glimpse of the science teacher's nipple under her collar, inside her bra. Instantly whisper-pinned in the crosshair aim of an eye the size of the wind, tied-down and famished by the mystery hunger I was fed to at birth. My eyes become conduits for the ends of space to greet one another. I'm turned into a tunnel for a darkness to crawl past on paws through. I become afraid to touch you, when I've practically walked inside you."
"True."
"But it's not fear. Time is thickening, which is what I'm seeing through. And the sweetness, the sweetness, the sweetness ... as time
will be to send it roaring again ... And to not touch you will be to always need to."
We sat. He'd watered the plant before we sat. We watched it come alive again, picking its headheavy leaves off the ground with a silent heroic strength. It was about half erect, half raised again. And we could actually watch it rise. Like watching the moon or the sun move. Things that seem should be impossible to see, or shouldn't actually happen, happen. Happening. And kind of halving the set of what should be impossible. So a kind of wearying. Because the other half obviously is much more impossible.
Another leave twitched and rose a little higher. Someone called it a lily once. Another lily leaf rose.
This was a time when the morning was mostly love and the evening was pretty much hate, between us. So the afternoon was always a kind of event. Creative, verbal, cunty, morose, or completely in synch. The emotional poles of morning and night were what our batteries touched. Much energy there, in the middle, as I recall. Der Zwischen. Wanting to tear his throat open with love. And feeling him wanting to kiss & kill me, because I was time keeper, and richer, then.
Across the alley I heard the woman chanting.
It was a bright, bright afternoon; the heat wave had passed.
"That leaves us alone again," V__ said. "And I can see you're none too happy about that."
He put two fingers on my right shoulder like it was an abdomen he was about to palpate, with his elbow behind my neck.
"How many years I know you?" he says. "The rings on our tree would be a good foot round," he says. Hard to tell if his fingers want to lick me or stick me. I think if I had bowling ball holes right there on my shoulder he'd insert three and throw me at the wall. He'd look me in the eye first.
He goes on: "All these years - the rings on our fingers - and sometimes I sit here when we sit here and am afraid to touch you at all. And it is like first touching a new lover. Before. I see you with the eyesight of grave desire."
"What."
"When hunger is up eyesight is thick with it. Like semen is the medium light passes through, and everything is the surface of desire. And when it happens between us, like now, I see you through these semen-swollen eyes, in this light thickened by my own biological sea. And you - years and years between us - two rings surrounding us - I catch a glimpse of your cleavage, of your ass's curve, of the blood beating in your neck, of the tiniest part of the corner of your eye or mouth, of your thigh, of your shadow, of the movement of the dress that hangs in the doorway swaying after you've passed by it - a glimpse of your most recent absence - and I feel the 10 year old boy I was, squatting on the mound above the field, when below my feet I caught a glimpse of the science teacher's nipple under her collar, inside her bra. Instantly whisper-pinned in the crosshair aim of an eye the size of the wind, tied-down and famished by the mystery hunger I was fed to at birth. My eyes become conduits for the ends of space to greet one another. I'm turned into a tunnel for a darkness to crawl past on paws through. I become afraid to touch you, when I've practically walked inside you."
"True."
"But it's not fear. Time is thickening, which is what I'm seeing through. And the sweetness, the sweetness, the sweetness ... as time
al
And I know to touch you most
stops
will be to send it roaring again ... And to not touch you will be to always need to."
We sat. He'd watered the plant before we sat. We watched it come alive again, picking its headheavy leaves off the ground with a silent heroic strength. It was about half erect, half raised again. And we could actually watch it rise. Like watching the moon or the sun move. Things that seem should be impossible to see, or shouldn't actually happen, happen. Happening. And kind of halving the set of what should be impossible. So a kind of wearying. Because the other half obviously is much more impossible.
Another leave twitched and rose a little higher. Someone called it a lily once. Another lily leaf rose.
This was a time when the morning was mostly love and the evening was pretty much hate, between us. So the afternoon was always a kind of event. Creative, verbal, cunty, morose, or completely in synch. The emotional poles of morning and night were what our batteries touched. Much energy there, in the middle, as I recall. Der Zwischen. Wanting to tear his throat open with love. And feeling him wanting to kiss & kill me, because I was time keeper, and richer, then.
Across the alley I heard the woman chanting.
It was a bright, bright afternoon; the heat wave had passed.
posted by J. Neptune at 3:27 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home