December 1, 2003
December
What is it, then? December? Not tonight, not when I am drowning in ten minutes ago, time like a drink taken too quickly, crowding my throat. My lungs are filling up with water, tissues and fibers bursting and giving way. All those buried sentiments come barreling forth, passing like cream over my tongue. Milk and you and scrabble at the coffee shop. Our coffee shop. Reciprocation.
I pull the sheets and two blankets up to my chin as though they can make it disappear, muffling my words enough that I have the awkward joy of saying what it is I have to say twice. You tug a shirt down over your smile.
"You make me happy."
I know that I am still naked underneath, wearing clothes, even, I am naked.
The smile sticks, you spread it like butter onto my biscuit of a mouth and it is shared.
"You make me very happy."
And all is warm and real and I've dressed but I'm still caught up in thinking about being undressed, still caught up, catching up to you as you pull away, as I part the blinds like legs, like lips, like your hands and my legs and lips; as I watch. Your tail lights flare and subside as you brake and release.
I want you to know that you still have the power to teach me things, to make me angry, to draw tears from my eyes in sadness and in rapture. I hate using that word, there is something spiritual and foolish about it. But I was spiritual and foolish before I met you.
There was never such a thing as beauty before this.
astera at 12:01 a.m.