Sometimes
It’s difficult seeing, to look at her on a Saturday afternoon, and to know, know she also knew, for the first time this will be the last Saturday they sit, coupled and crying, pretending they didn’t know, didn’t see that together they couldn’t move on.
And she knew that soon all she’d have is a memory, because every writer knows, and every writer tries still for more, to somehow be more giving.
There were few things he wanted. Her, and for her to be wanting, to be angry, to not know a difference. And she knew he wanted her, and her to be wanting. And knew he asked very few things.
They were in some car, her legs tasseled, irreducibly bored, and he barely there but dashing lane back to lane, fingering the slit between seat and counsel, and she flinched, and they were in a rented car, and the car was bumping base, and her hands began as mounds in a shape or situation that didn’t then comply, and then they were laying flat, so a pressure like a pit was driven into one ear then both until her body couldn’t feel the base, but her thoughts and that was all.
Sometimes it comes down to this.
Drawing infinity signs and watching them break unprofitability in a cup.
Barely there but dashing lane back to lane, a clarity in the corner of her eye, and what she saw was a man like a stranger, who she’d thought she could love, because love is learning, and love’s what was cradled to your body wasn’t there and attached because it had to be but becomes, becomes a problem surrounding what belongs.
To be right for.
For years, twenty-two years, all my life, she would say, I have never wanted more than two things, to have a friend is one. And then she’d stop, shovel peppered greens along a plate, and he would watch, not knowing what she wanted really, but wanting to know, for years, well just one, one and a half, give or take, he’d been wanting, dying, dying only to know her, know her really, and so he watched her shovel peppered greens, push aside a nummy plate, and never asked why she unfolded a napkin in its place.
Dotted her ‘i’s.
Acknowledged the division between her body and her brain. Always acknowledging.
Her humiliation.
Clamping, consoling him.
Hanging like a dishrag over the corner table, stirring her spoon in a shroud of tea.
Drawing infinity signs.
Infinity signs breaking unprofitability in a cup.
Everything happens for a reason.
She wrote about effort, reaching out onto open air—empty space. She wrote about all the old feelings. In a way, she let them come streaming back.
Always thinking, seizing, so painfully conscious considering, that maybe I’m not the only one caught in the remembering.
Remembering that I should be the lightest person in the room.
A declaration, her demeanor.
And he watched, positioning the legs of a chair at an angle, seeing how lovely she was demeaning herself, crying, so hysterical right there in front of him.
Clamping, consoling, her demeanor, a declaration, what she needed, and he wanted her to be wanting.
She knew that soon all she’d have is a memory.
While she was waiting for something else to begin, a schoolgirl walked in and dropping her bag, turned to her as if she were waiting for her and not their class. The schoolgirl was moaning.
Have you ever thought that maybe we make ourselves tired? She asked staring into the screen of a laptop, dodging the gray from her face, circling the pits of her eyes with a mouse.
The schoolgirl responded Oh, uhhm, uhhm.
Love is learning, and she also, was learning.
How many pages never get written because failed gestures don’t incite sensation, a change?
She reverted to the inside, was comforted by this voice, felt crazy for it, and then looked forward to someone that could live along with her, a situation she didn’t already have, that she saw in wispy brushstrokes, the movement of people, two then one.
I’d rather a voice than a body.
And he never asked why.
Maybe that’s what everyone’s particularly good at, even made for. Made for forgetting themselves, that somehow they’re involved.
She wanted to moan, and tried as he pushed right through her.
So painfully conscious not to love so thoroughly in advance.
And it was impossible when you weren’t the only one inside yourself.
And she knew that soon all she’d have is a memory.
She could picture it. Being a mother, leaving to the office, having the car in reverse, and witnessing her son hanging from a Banyan tree as if he were an angel, a ghost.
Could picture climbing, hand to bark, so hurried, that it couldn’t be brief, the pain, bleeding somewhere there on the inside, could picture bark seared palms, their liplike colour, could picture still having the strength to tie a knot, the strength to have no feeling at all, could picture hanging there like a pendant, she, so painfully conscious of the strain it took to be all wanting.
And when he goes, kissing her, she pulls back, and tells him the strength it takes to be the son, to want to be better, and he wants to throw up, and she says instead, why don’t you ask a question.
Like what was he feeling?
The son.
A circle carved into his neck.
How long it takes to climb a tree, loop a rope around an elbow.
Dying only to know.
And she asked please?
Wanted to be surprised when he pushed-up over, watched her body thinning as the linen crept, slipping into a puddle by the bed, blue dressing his hardwood floor.
And then like that, more or less, cap-to-cap, they were shoulder touching. They were heads reared upward, stones staring through ceiling. And she thought of the two things she wanted, wondered whether a star was strong enough to snatch, pull a body high, so the whole of her cutout the emptiness in a wall.
They were limb length to limb length like a pair, two packed cigarettes, ready, burning, and wanting to be taken in, to be put out.
And she thought please.
If only to know her.
She’d stay, dying for that.
A voice rather than a body.
And he watched her crying, pictured her as if she had stopped, as if it were after noon, and she crisp at forty-five, and wanting, always wanting his breath down the length of her body, waiting and wanting the mouth she kissed to drop between her legs, the tongue to toy through her like a hand extending itself, and he watched her staring downward, and she wanted to moan, and he wanted her to too, to be wanting, to be angry, so painfully conscious of him, that he was responsible, was pleasure as big as Montana, her orgasm buzzing on warm air.
Sometimes we become this.
A position surrounding what belongs.
Can you imagine yourself, he posed, living another life?
Home working, trailing glitter, shaking the space between one hand and another loose.
Stars seemingly tilted to his bending.
So close that the shadow of a body became enough to pregnant her handheld lake.
Can you imagine?
Being that someone to dance beside the sea.
Consistently lit, to be the thrill that unleashes champagne’s upward hail.
Living another life.
Deflowered, part prick, and hardly maintaining the feelings of a girl.
Can you imagine?
A celestial birth, how from afar hundreds of sailboats look like tadpoles in a bowl.
And what life could become as a painter positioned on a pier.
She saw wispy brushstrokes, the movement of people, two then one.
And rather than a body, she imagined a miracle, touches given by a voice.
Imagined feelings wouldn’t come because another, and another Jewish cock.
Sometimes it comes down to this.
Becoming the question that competes with all those never asked.
The degree of figure and muse. The stillness that Saturday, the slumber in a couple’s feet.
And everything happens for a reason.
The difference between earth and air and farm-fresh eggs, she so young and distinguishable, his head deep between her hips, the taste of sunset, the noise of ten thousand waves.
And sometimes it comes down to this.
The difference between love and a night of it.
Comes down to this.
A challenge.
Not becoming attached to what you belong to.
Putting an ear to a chest, and thinking, thinking outwardly, audibly of the heart as a great glass house. And not letting that break you, love, and the learning of how slow she spreads her legs.
Wants to moan, and tries as he pushes right through her.
So personal, essential, so ready to move on.
Impossible when she wasn’t the only one inside herself.
