July 31, 2003
Disguise
Look at our books, there, making love on the bedside table. The lamp like the sun, illuminating the gloss on their covers... could that be the sheen of sweat? Opened like fans against eachother, word mingling with word. Opposites, perhaps (A+ Guide to Managing and Maintaining Your PC by Jean Andrews; Sappho's Leap by Erica Jong), but all white pages and identical typeset within.
Do you remember stroking my cheek in the darkness, singing softly, your eyes riveted upon mine? I would blush and they would inevitably flutter closed. I never could look love full in the face.
Watch me unmask like a tree marked for death, shedding leaves to the wind, limbs to the merciful roar of a chainsaw. A dead tree devours itself from within, disease creating hollows where a heart should be. But look! I am withered only, my stout rings of years resisting. Fawn coloured and firm I am, and it is not to the rough touch of indifference that I shall yield.
Watch me unfold like a curious hand, all eager palms and hastily chewed nails. There is a perfect fit for me, I know, where heart line shall pair heart line, my broken Girdle of Venus picked up and polished off in another, foreign mount. My callouses will diminish with tender touch; two slightly worn sets of fingers remaining: yours and mine.
I press my cheek against your chest, my nose seeking your sternum, breathing the vapors emanating from your heart. I am aching for the pulse I felt a few nights ago, your hammering through the whole of your body, your heart hammering inside of me.
The force of your life overtook me; such a steady, dominant pulse. Though I let go, I am still hanging on.
Do you remember all of the songs we have sung, our voices paired and apart, our wills giving and taking, our selves sharing?
astera at 4:54 p.m.