Golden Hour

It's not sleeping together that's the problem: it's the staying awake together thats the real killer.

There's something deadly and dangerous and just damn delicious when you stare into each other's eyes and share your darkest secrets between whispers and soft smiles. There's a calculated risk we all take when we open our hearts to someone new, hoping they hold it closely to their own.

The night stretches out infinitely, consistently, like we've done this a thousand times. Lived a thousand lives. Shared a thousand moments.

I love him in the moment between dead and alive; between dusk and dawn; between his half closed eyes and parted lips, and his hand resting delicately on my wrist.

As the sun tears open the darkness, I am lost in this golden hour. Sunken eyes looking longingly at each other until we blink away the darkness and start anew.

There's a killer in this bed, and it's neither one of us: there's a killer in this bed and it's the space between light and dark.

Oh, to be loved by a woman

 Oh, to be loved by a woman:

So beautiful it makes your insides ache and curl around the very last morsel of her.

Oh, to be loved by a woman,

whose eyes you get lost in, caught in her gaze like a fly to a venice flytrap.

Oh, to be loved by a woman:

One touch is like fire and ice burning together on my naked 

Oh, to be loved by a woman.

To have her care so deeply and so infinitely, you will be her whole world and all she asks is you listen and treat her with kindness.

And even if you don't, she will hold on to you so tightly, never letting go. Helping you to grow. Hoping you change. Loving you completely despite the loneliness growing like a stormcloud within her.

She can't help but love the idea of you.

Of all you could be.

Of everything she hopes you already are.

But she does not deserve to love a mere idea, a whisper on the wind; a changing season. 

She deserves to be loved by a man who isn't me.

Oceans

He envelopes me whole with one lazy hand strewn over my hip and pulls me closer to him.

I can't breathe.

He's intoxicating.

He smiles halfway to the right, like he's signalling for me to come closer.

My thoughts are rapid fire artillery

Echoing loudly through my chest.

I look into his eyes and I'm immediately and damnedly trapped within them. I can't look away. 

I can't breathe.

I'm under the ocean with you.

I'm lost within you.

A prison of my own making.

I'll remain forever.

Swallowed up by the feverish sea.

Unable to break free.

Not wanting to.

Oh, what it is to be so easily and carelessly beloved. By you, completely, all-comsumingly. So casually, you fling me over your shoulder and twirl me around until in between my fit of giggles and cries I find my feet again. Before I can register this, I'm enveloped in your arms again, caught in the fire of your volcanic body.

Oh, how easy you love me; how easy you make it seem; how easily I picture our lives. You, carelessly consuming me until there is nothing left. 

This is not love. This is a lot like love.

One balled fist lays strewn across your bare chest and I can't help but stare and imagine that fist splayed out against my own chest. I loved it there.

You choose your suffering. I choose my suffering.

They are not the same.

I look into your eyes and I see our whole potential written in the creases of your furrowed brow. But your suffering can not impact my own. We cannot drown in the sea of our own desires. 

I long to breathe.

When you took me

I blow out twenty-eight candles and it hits me 

like a text book on a table. 

Golden light from a nearby lamp.

Red.

Soft voices and low laughter

Disgust.

The same age

The same age

I grew up

I broke free

I healed

Free from your gaze

but who is still caught within those hazel eyes?

I know I wasn't unique.

I wasn't the only one.

We're in reverse now: Benjamin Buttoning

But with none of the progress.

You're an old man now.

I'm the same age you were

When you took me

I'm in the same profession you were

when you took me

I teach students the same age I was

when you met me

But you're not me

And you'll never be.

I would never be like you;

You used me.

I would never use people like you

I protect people like me.

I'm free.

Portugal

I saw a small bird face down into the dark and dangerous depths below. It bounced and swayed on the thin branch it balanced on. It looked down into the depths without fear, quietly waiting for the right moment - whatever that moment could be.

Then, without a second thought, it dove. It dove into the hole and was swallowed up by the darkness within. But then out it came once more, dipping and diving in and out of the crevice like it owned it. Like it knew all it's limitations and knew the very essence of the cave and trusted it completely. Every ebb and flow of the war below shooting inconsistent waves of air up to the surface. As if the wind was there as a gift for the bird, to aid it in its flight.

I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

The sea painted the smoothed cliff face like veins charged with new life. The ocean feeds the cliff over and over and over.

The waves have reached their precipise, kissing the air before crashing apart once again.

The song and dance continues.

Sunday

The sun streamed into the open blinds, and I curse under my breath that I fell asleep before closing them properly last night.

He touched my side, between my underwear and upper thigh, and I shivered. I knew what this would lead to. He positioned himself over me and started grinding. It wasn't bad, but it was also half eight in the morning and I couldn't be bothered doing more than laying there - occasionally putting my arms around him to pull the short hairs on the back of his neck like I know he likes.

We were so far into our relationship that he no longer asked. He just acted until I would tell him to stop. It was easier if I never did. The day would go smoother.

He continued to grind on me, and then slowly unbuttoned my pyjama top and grabbed a fistful of breast in one hand - like they were his.

There was a thin line between the wall and the ceiling where the last tenant had missed repainting the room. Maybe I should use the paint we found in the cupboard to patch that up. Is that my job though? How could they not have noticed that? I could do a better job, and the most I've ever painted is a self portrait in art class, where the portrait was me reimagined as a can of cream of chicken soup. 

He rolled me over. 

Now, all I could see was the pilling starting to occur on the sheet below me. At least it was soft. And at least I didn't have to look at him anymore. 

Men are simple creatures: a handful of boob, morning sex, and food in the fridge. If men were simple, did that automatically make me complicated? 

I wanted to be simple too.

Changes

And then before you know it, you're sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by key chains and cats and tea cups.

Back to reality

Stacks of paper

Holding memories

Stacked like coffee table books.

And then before I knew it I was remembering what it was like to travel the world, from afar.

I was no longer present: it was now in my past.

And I was different.

I was changed.

I wake up and forget where I am.

Oh, to know one home my whole life.

And now to be lost when I look out the window and see weeds and decking instead of squirrels and storm clouds.

And before I could blink, I was no longer wrapped in your arms for comfort but facing the future with forced independence and a facade of furled lips.

The shops have changed, the streets have grown, and new apartments block out the sheep that once roamed freely on my way to work. 

So I take a new route.

I get lost.

I adjust.

I learn.

And before I knew it, I learn that the funny thing about home is exactly what everyone has always told me: it's not a place. It's a feeling.

But I didn't take it with me. 

I feel I left it behind by accident because I didn't know I needed it. 

And now I wake up in the morning lost, disoriented, 

but radiant. A new beginning. A life loved.

The meaning of life is not the places, it's not even the music. It's the people and the memories and the feelings. It's creating and loving and living. Who knew?

The tears fall through streams of consciousness in the hazy light when I open my blinds and look outwards at my new beginnings.

Make your mark. See where it takes you next.

The purpose of life is to love and be loved: anywhere, always, everywhere.

And again.

All at once

 And then all at once I looked back into the darkness I had emerged from, on the longest, winding road, and I could see how far I had come.

I had arrived at a place I never could have imagined, with the softest raindrops washing me anew and wiping away my past.

And then all at once I began to see that I did not need anyone else; I was self reliant all along. I just needed a reminder.

And then all at once I had seen how far I still had to go, but for the first time in my life, I knew I could do it.

Eggs

I was Julia roberts in Runaway Bride: not knowing what kind of eggs I liked.

Am I a boiled girly? Do I like them fried? Do I prefer scrambled eggs?

I conform to my surroundings. 

I'm a vine winding around an abandoned room, trying to find the light amongst the slats of the boarded up windows, appeasing the one that waters me.

Between the silences

He makes us dinner.

I offered, but he tells me he's "got it."

I've never had dinner made for me before. The care taken; multi-step dish.

And we eat in the silence

with the birds' chirps softly outside our window and the soft yellow light of his lamps illuminating our plates.

And our spoons grazing ungracefully against our china bowls.

And between the silences I begin to heal.