It's the lonely part of the day. I wander through MFA studios, hoping to find company. Perhaps Matt or Cassie or Val are there.
There's no one.
I pull the curtain away to open Val's studio. I see bits of skin and film. Latex touched with paint, curing in different colors added during the making. Latex and rubber brushed onto paper in thin films reminiscent of flesh colored stained glass. On the wall she's pinned bits and pieces of interest. Photos of moles and scars, small lumpy textured things made of inorganic goo, fragile drawings and notes.
A piece of paper covers a photograph...purposefully, as the curtain gives her studio privacy. Feeling guilty for my intrusion, I push it away nonetheless. It is you: naked, your back to the camera, seated on the side of the bed, somewhat tousled.
The line of the neck to join the shoulders, the pull of the shoulder blades at the muscles above them, the thin trace of your spine and pale warm color of your skin. I stare at the image while I attune my ears to the silence so that the slightest noise will give me warning enough to leave. I look at the photo with a draughtsman’s eye: the structure and line in it...then as a detective, your hair and the sheets that wind around your hips, the base of your back, are in disarray. In bits and pieces, I compare the photo to memory and the impression of who you are begins to invade the smooth blank image of your back. There, amongst prosethetic moles and scars, breath enters the the form in the photo.
My reaction was one of overwhelming and unfortunate desire.
I fled.
These are things you most likely do not remember.
I can recall first seeing you and being shocked by the disparity between the person I expected to meet and the person I was looking at. Dark sad eyes...predatory and seductive sad eyes. Not my imagined accompaniment for bright and gentle Val.
I remember pulling the front seat visor down in the car and staring at you via the cosmetic mirror. The feeling of your fingers curling round a swath of my hair that had fallen around the back of the front seat. The delight of the gentle rhythmic pull of your touch as your fingers moved towards the base of my skull. Val beside me, beautiful and elegant, engrossed in the nighttime side street traffic.
I sat up slowly to make you release my hair and you did. Edited by: NousPoetikos at: 1/15/03 10:49:11 pm
At some point in late May, in the back of the van, the world outside the windows began to glitter radiant with sunlight. Breath seemed to move in and out of my lungs with incredible ease – my mind was restful and elated all at once. It was as if an odd sort of transmission suddenly hit my wavelength and began to broadcast on and over my own signals - a strange infusion of sensations that I sat quietly enjoying.
…And then I became curious…perplexed.
I began to recount my present situation to myself. I was stuffed with Thai food – a full stomach would not account for this – besides, upon further reflection, I noted that the Thai Iced Tea was not sitting well. It was a beautiful spring day – but there were certainly other beautiful spring days both before and after – this one no more than the rest. When I focused further on my surroundings, there was an obnoxious song on the radio, the muffled sound of fellow passengers talking in the front seat. The temperature was hotter than comfortable but the air conditioner was on – all perfectly normal and usual.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of your left index finger extended to within a few inches of the side of my neck. Your arm rested on the back of the seat, elbow slightly bent, wrist dangling. Up until this point, I hadn’t noticed you there. I turned my head and looked at the hand, the wrist and what I could see of the finger. I looked at you to see if you were aware of me looking at your wrist, hand and finger. You were daydreaming and lost to the world.
I looked out the front window, still full of a now annoyingly mysterious and inexplicable blissful sensation. There was no way that the nearness of your finger to my neck was causing this. I continued to scan the inside of the van and the world outside for clues to my mood. Nothing further struck me as odd.
I purposely leaned away from you and twisted towards the passenger window on my side. The trees grayed down, the sunlight flattened out, the elation and peace receded.
Oh shit.
Somewhat shocked, I returned to the upright position and removed the twist in my spine. My neck was once again inches away from your finger. The light glittered in the leaves; the sky was a shocking blue and the smooth fullness of the original sensations returned.
No. This makes absolutely no sense.
Nuts.
I looked at you once again to see if you had noticed my movement to and fro. You were still lost in another world, silently staring ahead. I tilted my head towards you and this you did notice slightly. You looked at me briefly then returned to your thoughts.
I remained there, head tilted.
I'm still there. Edited by: NousPoetikos at: 1/16/03 8:05:07 am
Seems apt to put this here
Do you ever wonder? Where would you go? Who would you be? If you could wind it all back, would you follow the same path once more?
I wonder all the time. I wonder where I’d be if I’d realized earlier that I was blind and not stupid. Perhaps a physicist, or a rocket scientist. Or maybe I’d be a burned out drunk living in a cardboard box with a mind full of shattered reality.
What if I’d never had that first drag? Would I have the cerebral understanding of my addictions if I’d never battled nicotine? Could I be a heroin addict instead of just an alcoholic? Maybe if I’d never smoked I’d be a hockey star, flush with fame, cash and braggadocio.
God I want your attention, but why? I can still see the pain in her eyes, a virtual widow. Emotion spent with you that I could not give to her.
We never said goodbye, I simply turned around and walked out of your life forever. The touch of your hand lingers on. Sad eyes. I often wonder where I’d be if I’d only kissed you. Night after night I wanted to hold you so bad, but you ran to me for safety, not love. I used to dream of you as a mother, a wife, my lover. I could not break your trust.
Do you know? How many times I stood at your door, but never turned the handle. I held your hand but could not look you in the eye for fear of exposing myself as a fraud. You thought I was your friend but you could not possibly know how deeply I love you. You were my muse, my drive, my insanity.
I saw his shoes in my doorway, but the connection was not conscious until I knocked on your locked door. How crushing (to squeeze or force by pressure so as to alter or destroy) to hear that voice with yours! Love bled out of my chest, running down my abdomen, down my legs and onto the floor where it made it’s way to the floor drain and disappeared. And then you were gone.
Those words, spilling from your lips without constraint. You didn’t hide the pain in your voice. Anger and Confusion battled for my mind. You can’t say this now! Don’t you understand? Didn’t you see me there, waiting, dieing? How dare you. And then I was gone.
And now? What has become of you? I wrote you a letter, but with no option to reply. I would call you but you’ve vanished like a passing stranger in the night. I often see you in a crowd and I struggle to see your face but it’s never you. It's better this way. What tipped you off – my fingerprints or your own?
You I can’t remember to forget. What if I’d kissed you?
Not Ready
How do I combat "not ready"? What answer is there for that? There really isn't one. So instead I told him that I broke our deal. I sat in his car for the first time, my skirt riding high and his eyes trying not to look, I sat there and told him that I screwed it all up. We had this arrangement. We weren't supposed to feel . . . well much of anything for each other, beyond desire.
But how was that possible? We started this whole thing by talking to each other. We bared our souls to each other and found that we fit in all the right places. How is it possible that we could know so much about each other and not care? So of course I fell for him. I fell for this guy that I wasn't supposed to love, and the only lie I ever told him was that I wasn't falling, hadn't fallen for him.
So I sat in his car on a beautiful Monday afternoon, the sun shining in a clear, blue sky, and told him that I had lied. I told him that I loved him. And somehow, though I know him so well that I could have predicted the exact expression on his face when I told him, somehow I hoped for a different answer. And when he looked at me with nothing but kindness and compassion in his eyes, somehow I was disappointed. I knew what he would say and how he'd say it, but still I hoped for more.
And even now I'm baffled. How could he know so much of me and not care? The things he says, the things I know he feels, they are the solid foundations of the kind of emotion that I feel, so how could he not?
Oh, but what if he does . . . my god what a love that could be. We did everything right! We have this great beginning - friendship, complete trust, honesty and humor, and a basic, fundamental combatibility. And he makes me laugh. And I make him feel young. Oh, what that could be.
And now - now it's just so hard. I see him every day, all day. He looks at me in a way that no one else ever has. It's not just desire, although that's definitely there. It's something more than that. It's enough to make me wonder how I'm supposed to combat "not ready." It's enough to make me wait.
. . . her arms are wicked and her legs are long . . .
dharma explorer
Posts: 357
(1/17/03 10:18 pm) Reply
One of many things you cannot have...
I was going to put this in Language, but it really belongs here.
-------------------
For 8 months we spent more time with each other than we did with our spouses. Boss and subordinate, officially; we were in fact equals. Working together. Solving problems together. Commiserating losses together. Celebrating successes together. Short hurried lunches together when we had a deadline to meet. Extended relaxing lunches together when time permitted.
Talking.
Sharing.
Caring.
She was my right hand gal. I knew I could count on her for anything at any time, and she knew she could count on me.
She's 35 but could pass for 25. I'm.....older.
Mutual little flirtations and mild innuendos to relieve the stress gave way to more obvious cues and more direct risque suggestions. Sexual tension so thick you could cut it with a knife.
The cramped aisles of the film files storage area, where two people can not pass without brushing torsos. We would sometimes pause...just for an instant...mid-brush...and she would bend ever so slightly at the waist. The pleasant firmness of breast or rear pressing against me. The devilish twinkle in her eyes, and impish smile on her lush mouth. Her fragrance filling my nose. My Latina tormentor.
Even in the large work area we would gravitate together. A ten foot long table, but before you know it we would be side by side bumping elbows and knees.
Fearful of where this was heading, one day I reassigned her to work at another location. Half-way through the day she called me. "But I want to be there with you", she said. I gave in.
It grew deliciously unbearable for both of us. A few weeks later, she told me she would be leaving. She was going back to school for another degree.
We never consummated our love. Never even said the word love to each other. We never even kissed.
She cried on the day she left me. I did too, but not 'till she was gone. I said I'd miss her terribly. She said she'd never forget me. We held each other.
It's been three weeks and I still feel physically sick. Sick from losing her, and sick from the knowledge that though we never made love we gave our hearts, and maybe that's an even worse way of cheating on a spouse. I don't know. I just know I feel bad about losing her and bad about wanting her and bad about never having her and bad about myself.
---------------------------
Advice and/or chastisement accepted somewhere in Language or by email.
---------- There are no maps of unexplored places
manniac dharma explorer
Posts: 361
(1/18/03 9:18 pm) Reply
One of many things I can not have.
She sent me these today.
---------
Edited to remove a link. They say that art imitates life. Now the image, like the girl, is no longer there.
Edited by: manniac at: 1/27/03 9:49:12 pm
Re: One of many things you cannot have...
I'm so sorry. Don't know [exactly] what happened, but I know it was probably a very bad day. Sometimes though, the words "the end" are only meant to stir the audience into going to the sequel. Other times the artist decides that a sequel would simply not be right. Only the artist knows.
However it occured, view it as an addition to the life. Not a loss. You gained from the experience.
I think I may know this better than most.
The heart mends slowly. I wish it on no one...especially friends.
manniac dharma explorer
Posts: 397
(1/28/03 8:09 pm) Reply
,
Thank you, friend. And I never use the word 'friend' lightly.
Re: One of many things you cannot have...
why does it have to be her
this woman that I don’t even know
who binds you to her
yet leaves you hurting
and why does it have to be her
this person who doesn’t want you
who keeps your heart
and causes you such anguish
tell me, why couldn’t it be me
this woman who loves you
who wants you
and longs to let your soul fly
it tears me apart
when you come to me weeping
this woman, I am
who listens to your heartache
I didn't think it'd be so hard
just to be your friend
this person, I am
who suffers here beside you
why does it have to be her
that woman I can’t compete with
who you love
and whom you will never leave
Better your own truth, however weak, than the truth of another, however noble.
~Shakyamuni Buddha
longing for something
just finished reading all that. you guys are a great crowd. Dont know what else to say. I feel for your heart ache, and I am jealous at the same time, even though I don't know any of you and its my first time here. I hope I can belong.
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