I'm sitting at the table with all my old friends. I know we've all had too much to drink because there are corks on the floor, under my foot, that have long since rolled off the surface of the table and dark stains bleed into the white table cloth where my glass spilled when somebody knocked it over earlier.
I look at the laughing faces of those sitting around me. Rejection laughs the hardest. Cackling and slapping the table loudly. He wasn't invited, but he always seems to show up anyway. Next to him, laughing almost as hard, sits Disappointment. She lets the glass in her hand down. In between cackles he turns to her and they kiss. It's almost obscene what a good couple they make.
Faith juts a glass in my direction. She wants a refill. I pick up the nearest green bottle but its empty. I hold it up to the light to peer through it. Just to make sure. A quick glance around the table and I notice all the bottles are empty save for the one in the hands of Temptation. She dangles it in front of me, before smirking and pouring the last of the wine into her glass. Faith is not happy. I look for the nearest waiter but I can't make eye contact and none of them sees me raise my hand. Faith gets up from the table. Sighs. Drops her napkin on her chair. I think about following her as she walks off. Reason looks at me and shakes his head. Like he knows what I'm thinking.
My vision falls on the two in front of me. Hope runs a finger along the rim of her glass. The glass tips up on the edge of its base. Precariously balanced by her delicate touch. Love plays with strands of her own hair and the air catches her scent and I can smell her sweet fragrance from here. They share a glance that implies some illicit affair will take place after we're all gone. I imagine Hope running her delicate fingers over the nape of Love's neck. Drawing them down to her perfect breast. Balancing a fingertip on her nipple to tease her. I must be staring because they both glare at me. I chuckle. No one can make me feel more like a voyeur than these two. There might as well be a pane of glass between them and me.
I glance around the restaurant. At the front door. Towards the restrooms. I think about looking for Faith. Sadness lights a cigarette, and takes a deep drag. She's not suppose to smoke in here. I shoot her a look and she exhales in my general direction and the veil of smoke comes over me. Choking me. I swipe at the air in front of my face. I wish she would just disappear. I feel like ripping the cigarette from her hand. Temperance, a late arrival, as usual, pats me on the back and says hello. He sits far away from me. I'm not about to start screaming across the table. I wish Passion had shown up. I'm so thirsty all of a sudden. Where the fuck is the waiter?
The guest of honor, at the head of the table, gestures for us to quiet down. We do. She begins, "I just want to say thanks for coming out tonight. It means a lot to me. I'm sorry if I haven't been around as much as you'd all like these last few days, but if things go well I'll be around quite a bit more in the future." The waiter suddenly appears as if culled from the ether. He fills all our glasses from one last bottle. Before anyone's taken a sip I quickly stand up. I raise my glass towards the head of the table. I smile. "To Happiness." The chorus echoes my sentiment and I sit down again. Momentarily satisfied to be in her presence. Even if she's got an early appointment in the morning and won't be staying long. It was good to see her.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
"It Doesn't Matter Two" -by M. L. Gore
"As I lay here with you
The shame lies with us
We talk of love and trust
That doesn't matter
Though we may be the last in the world
We feel like pioneers
Telling hopes and fears
To one another
And oh what a feeling
Inside of me
It might last for an hour
Wounds are healing
Inside of me
Though it feels good now
I know it's only for now
The feeling is intense
You grip me with your eyes
And then I realise
It doesn't matter"
- Martin .L. Gore
The shame lies with us
We talk of love and trust
That doesn't matter
Though we may be the last in the world
We feel like pioneers
Telling hopes and fears
To one another
And oh what a feeling
Inside of me
It might last for an hour
Wounds are healing
Inside of me
Though it feels good now
I know it's only for now
The feeling is intense
You grip me with your eyes
And then I realise
It doesn't matter"
- Martin .L. Gore
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Jealous or Guilty or Neither or Both (2001)
An extraordinarily beautiful woman got on the elevator today. She lives on my floor. I tried not to look at her. I thought about my girlfriend. I thought there must be times when my girlfriend finds other men attractive, and I felt hurt. I think I probably looked like I couldn't breathe because the extraordinarily beautiful woman asked if I was okay.
"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." I said and she flashed an extraordinarily beautiful smile and I didn't know how I should feel. I didn't know if I should feel jealous or guilty or neither or both.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Letter to an Ex-Lover (01/31/06)
Do you remember when you danced for me in the living room of my apartment, naked but for four inch heels, swaying back and forth in the flicker of a strobe light? I lay on the ground looking up at you, remember?
Do you remember when you posed in the influence of my red bed-side lamp, so that I could take pictures of you with a borrowed digital camera? Do you remember that you watched as I deleted those pictures--or did I?
Do you remember that lazy day of having sex on your mother's bed when she was away? Spending all day naked and under the covers, curtains pulled taut?
Do you remember when you went down on me in the shower of my father's house, water dripping down your face?
Do you remember reaching to rearrange the angle of my video camera? Do you remember watching me destroy the video tape with a set of plumber's pliers because we were so angry and sure that it was over that neither of us could keep the evidence?
Do you remember regretting this after?
Do you remember being drunk and horny, and wanting to find another woman to sleep with us? Do you remember the times I held you by the throat while we had sex? Do you remember when I covered your face with a pillow? With a pillow case? The dirty things we whispered in each other's ears?
Do you remember when we fucked on the floor of my empty apartment, after I'd moved all of my things out, the carpet burning our skin? It was the last time I had sex in that apartment.
Do you remember smoking weed and fucking and eating ice cream and fucking and laughing and fucking again?
Do you remember the last time we had sex, because I don't?
Do you remember our first kiss? The dim lit upstairs lounge? My hand traveling down your back to your ass?
Do you remember, before all of this, standing on the staircase in that black and white striped dress, looking up at me and asking, "You're leaving?"
Do you remember the first time we met? That you smirked disdainfully at my joke because you didn't think it was very funny?
I remember.
I remember even if for a short time I forgot. I remember eventhough I know of the tendancy to view the past with rose-tinted fondness. I remember even when I'm in the arms of another and I don't want to.
Although I may never again touch you or taste you or feel you from within, such was the fire between us that I will always remember; I will always think of you not as an ex, but as a lover...
Natalie (12/11/05)
In the 28th year of my life I met a sweet and conflicted young graduate student with a luminous smile named Natalie. She had a subtle grace and elegance to her movement that was belied only by the not-so-subtle, if endearing, shrug of her shoulders every time I made her laugh. They would bounce up and down with the tender and soft rise and fall of her laugh, and I likened it to one of the most beautiful sights and sounds I'd ever seen or heard. I grew very fond of Natalie in a very short time, and drew from her all the laughing and breathing and sighs that I could consume. But, I also drew pain.
We'd met in a club/lounge, a tiny lobby in a converted art deco hotel, rearranged to accommodate singles crowds. I was there to meet someone else, but because this second girl was late, or because I was just instantly and unavoidably attracted to Natalie, my original plans became discarded ones. After a series of casual glances turned deliberate I approached Natalie. She was standing at the bar smiling, laughing, bare shoulders bobbing out from underneath a beige shawl. "Hi, I'm Natalie," she said without giving me a chance to say a word and it was as if I was wrapped up in her shawl and shoulders and smell and smile before I could say, "Nice to meet you." Lord, was I in trouble.
How is it that you can describe the exquisite taste of someone else's flesh? Yes, flesh is salty with sweat, and sweet with the lingering of fragrance and perfume and lotion, but that's not what I mean. I'm talking about that sensation of placing your open lips and tongue on the base of another's neck, in that intimate space just above the shoulder, and feeling like you could subsist just from that. Even as I write this now I swear that I still have that exquisite and sweet and bittersweet taste lingering in my mouth.
You see, Natalie was conflicted and pained and, at that time, incapable, perhaps, of any kind of profound emotional investment. She was just out of a relationship that had left a deep and sizable wound, open and festering, in her psyche. You know whenever you meet a person like this--for they have a sense of self esteem far beneath and below what others regard they should have. Perhaps, because of this, Natalie could not, or chose not, to see my affections as anything but motivated by seduction and physical pleasure. And maybe every word that was said to refute this she only saw as proof of my 'imagined' devious intentions.
I grew up writing stories, painting pictures and singing songs. And forgive me if it sounds self-aware and conceited; but words have always come easy to me. It is not out of arrogance to say that I express myself well. In fact, I also suspect that I feel more than others do. That I have a deeper reservoir for emotion--and therefore am more capable of understanding and explaining it. Maybe, it's these two factors that truly encapsulate the irony of knowing Natalie. For I grew very fond of her in a very short time, and anytime I told her I how I felt, she only saw a ruse made in conquest. Because she knew how easy the words came they had become less meaningful. But I know that in those moments of subsistence, as I drew smiles and passionate breaths and bobs from her shoulders--in those lazy days between our first meeting and 'our talk'--I felt those very things that she was incapable of.
We had a heart to heart, Natalie and I, lying on my bed, our legs entwined, our feet close to the headboard and our heads at the foot of the bed. And she tried to tell me about how difficult dealing with her break up had been. She tried to tell me about how hard she was taking this rearrangement of her life and I could tell it was true. I could see the corners of her eyes moisten, and I wanted nothing more that to take away her pain--even if it meant my own. I had heard somewhere, that the difference between a good lover and a great one, is that the latter has only one thought, and that it's not of himself. So I smiled and she kissed me and said, "I feel much better after our talk," and it was never clearer to me how things would go. No, I didn't know how any of this would end--only that I would suffer until it did.
We'd met in a club/lounge, a tiny lobby in a converted art deco hotel, rearranged to accommodate singles crowds. I was there to meet someone else, but because this second girl was late, or because I was just instantly and unavoidably attracted to Natalie, my original plans became discarded ones. After a series of casual glances turned deliberate I approached Natalie. She was standing at the bar smiling, laughing, bare shoulders bobbing out from underneath a beige shawl. "Hi, I'm Natalie," she said without giving me a chance to say a word and it was as if I was wrapped up in her shawl and shoulders and smell and smile before I could say, "Nice to meet you." Lord, was I in trouble.
How is it that you can describe the exquisite taste of someone else's flesh? Yes, flesh is salty with sweat, and sweet with the lingering of fragrance and perfume and lotion, but that's not what I mean. I'm talking about that sensation of placing your open lips and tongue on the base of another's neck, in that intimate space just above the shoulder, and feeling like you could subsist just from that. Even as I write this now I swear that I still have that exquisite and sweet and bittersweet taste lingering in my mouth.
You see, Natalie was conflicted and pained and, at that time, incapable, perhaps, of any kind of profound emotional investment. She was just out of a relationship that had left a deep and sizable wound, open and festering, in her psyche. You know whenever you meet a person like this--for they have a sense of self esteem far beneath and below what others regard they should have. Perhaps, because of this, Natalie could not, or chose not, to see my affections as anything but motivated by seduction and physical pleasure. And maybe every word that was said to refute this she only saw as proof of my 'imagined' devious intentions.
I grew up writing stories, painting pictures and singing songs. And forgive me if it sounds self-aware and conceited; but words have always come easy to me. It is not out of arrogance to say that I express myself well. In fact, I also suspect that I feel more than others do. That I have a deeper reservoir for emotion--and therefore am more capable of understanding and explaining it. Maybe, it's these two factors that truly encapsulate the irony of knowing Natalie. For I grew very fond of her in a very short time, and anytime I told her I how I felt, she only saw a ruse made in conquest. Because she knew how easy the words came they had become less meaningful. But I know that in those moments of subsistence, as I drew smiles and passionate breaths and bobs from her shoulders--in those lazy days between our first meeting and 'our talk'--I felt those very things that she was incapable of.
We had a heart to heart, Natalie and I, lying on my bed, our legs entwined, our feet close to the headboard and our heads at the foot of the bed. And she tried to tell me about how difficult dealing with her break up had been. She tried to tell me about how hard she was taking this rearrangement of her life and I could tell it was true. I could see the corners of her eyes moisten, and I wanted nothing more that to take away her pain--even if it meant my own. I had heard somewhere, that the difference between a good lover and a great one, is that the latter has only one thought, and that it's not of himself. So I smiled and she kissed me and said, "I feel much better after our talk," and it was never clearer to me how things would go. No, I didn't know how any of this would end--only that I would suffer until it did.
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