You slap me and it’s hard and I deserve that. It’s sad it has to be this way but I accept it because I have no choice in the matter and mostly because you are you.
I never fell out of love with you.
It’s impossible and I have to try to hate you. Hate. I’m not born to deal with that and the older I have become I recognise I’m unable. You’re important to me and I’m not a wishful man, but if I were, I’d wish to know why. I have to accept you are and there’s no-one or nothing beyond that.
It’s not as powerful for you as it is for me.
There’s no tears from you nor me and I’m watching you by the window now grinding your teeth and bunching your fist and you want seconds and this one is really going to lay me out and I’m not about to let you do that.
You’re angry and too beautiful and I’m defeated by it. I have to grab your wrists but not hard and you’re strong and it’s enough to let you know I’m not afraid to touch you. And you’re not struggling to hurt me all that much now but you’re trying to kick me and some land against my shins and you’re saying, “ I’m not yours! I never was! I’m nobody’s property! I’m nobody’s! “
Your hair shines but I can tell you haven’t washed it lately and it suits you. I have a bad hair day every day and it was one of those things you liked, remember?
And you’re remembering now.
Women like you? No-one walks out on you. They have to stay. Have to let you call the shots or it’ll scare you off and when have I never let you?
We lay back on the bed, exhausted, our backs to the wall. You’re looking away from me out the window and you say, “ I don’t like men. “
Neither do I. I find us despicable. But you know and should know because I have written it down a million times why.
I say nothing.
You tell me how old I am now but not so much I feel redundant. You want to.
Still, I say nothing.
I’m looking at you and how the sun radiates upon you through the window. Together we can only see clouds and blue sky and the tops of old buildings and houses. A train is leaving. Trucks puff and rattle at the red light.
I can feel the warmth of your skin through your clothes and if I try anything I’m fearful you’ll lash out again, or hold out, or yell, “ I’m not in love with you, okay? I never have been! “
And I know.
Yet I can’t help myself and I touch your hand and you look at the act and see it’s tender and you don’t pull away.
We look in each other’s eyes and smirk and scoff at it and you say, “ I don’t love you. “
“ I don’t love you, either. “
We chuckle at that.
There we are.
And we’re holding hands now. It’s good to see you.
We’ve aged a bit. My beard has a little more salt, that’s what you tell me, and you like I’ve tried to keep well. I should have more wrinkles maybe.
You? The lines about your face now you’re forcing yourself to age fast. I can tell you’ve beaten yourself up a little bit and you always did that to get back at other people. I know. You’ve never had to tell me.
At least I have a clear conscience you don’t do that over me.
I kiss your hand. I explore it to your wrist. It’s peaceful. We know it and I’m getting lost upon you.
You don’t kiss mine back.
We’ve been here a while and your feet are laying across me now and you can leave any time you want. You know that, but you haven’t yet, and here we are.
Your shoes are off and I’ve massaged your feet, but not in the spots that make you flinch and kick away, and if I did that I’d have to watch myself. Although it’s playful and gets a smile you still don’t like it.
I kiss your ankles and you let me and then slowly draw your skirt up exposing your upper legs. They’re full, strong, and all part of you.
You point to me where you want me to kiss you calling the shots. I kiss you through the fabric of your underwear. You want me to and I use your belly as a pillow.
Your stomach burbles and it’s gentle and I can hear your heart beating. My arms are around your hips and you stroke my hair. I’m holding onto you for dear life, but you don’t know it, and I won’t tell you. I’m frightened without you and you weren’t there when I was taken, to be told I’m a menace to society and a disgrace to humanity. In your arms I am far away from that and you know it and it’s the kind of wanted man I’ve always needed to be.
“ I still don’t love you, “ you say.
“ I still don’t love you, either. “
You let me gently kiss your lips and I’m sorry about it and my mouth is a disgrace and full of your questions and I have no answers for you except that I’m sorry. And I could be anyone to you right now, but I don’t need to second guess it, because you are you and you are all I have needed all my life.
But you don’t know that and I won’t tell you.
Our fingers are intertwined and arms stretched gently toward the bedhead and the kissing isn’t furious. It’s gentle. New. Tender. You murmur and you flinch for a second because it just hit you… I’m lying.
You are the best. I love you more. But we agreed never to admit that.
I pull you close and my head is on your chest now.
“ What took you so long? “ you ask.
“ Couldn’t really avoid it. I thought of you everyday. Everything moves so slow in there I have time to think. I thought of how you’d sound now, how you’d look, who you were with. I remember being back in the local transport and stepping off the prison truck and feeling so calm because I knew you were there. One town away. And I don’t know if it’s sad or what, but it felt like I was home. “
You kiss me on the top of my head and say, “ Silly man. You really are. “
It’s getting dark now.
I can still see you remove your top and dress and you lay on the bed in your underwear. There’s only night traffic now and the lights along the mainstreet have been on for some time.
It’s warm.
And now this is the bit where I lay with you and I explore you with my lips and hands and we develop a smell of our own and the kisses are no more stronger than before and they don’t need to be.
I kiss your hips and purposefully search for any blemish or scar and I need to because I won’t know all of you if I don’t.
You can feel I want to go there with you and now you’re on top of me. It reminds me who calls the shots. A floral shadow is cast over you from the curtain and streetlights.
You ask, “ Got anything to say for yourself? “
“ Caught red handed, your honour. “
“ I like the dark. Everything is the same in the dark. There’s nothing to tell us what is and what isn’t and we have reason to use our imagination. Sometimes I thought of killing you and I have you right where I want you. But I can’t. You’re still too nice for me. When you kiss me like that I know you’re lying. No-one else does it the way you do. And I can tell you never touch anyone else. Everything you do is for me. I’ll never understand that about you. “
“ You’re my muse. The one thing that punishes man enough to find inner beauty to create great works of faith, fiction, art, and music all while he lay dying. You are mine and it’s the only way I can keep you for myself. I’d really like to. “
You tucks herself in beside me and your skin is warm and by instinct I’m tasting you.
We lip kiss and it’s warm and it’s Summer and you really need to sleep.
It’s morning.
The sun has barely come up and I’ve placed my jacket over you. I haven’t slept at all. I stroked your hair while you slept and I’m sorry I did that. I needed the time to study you in the dim lim glow thrown by those streetlights.
The creases in your lips, the few askew eyebrows, left over glitter beneath your eye from some new eyeliner you’ve found. But I see there’s something about you and I want to crawl inside it and it is painful there and I want to bundle it like wire strands and take it all from you.
I’m going to get us breakfast.
I’m happy. I’m thinking this time I might stay. I’ve missed the place if I’m honest about it. The buses, bakeries, opposite malls, the gleaming polished concrete sidewalks. Even the taped up shop windows. A collector is piling shopping trolleys onto his trailer.
I’m lucky because this place does a nice salad takeaway breakfast. That’s something different you may like.
I’m happy and I come through the hotel door and…you’re gone.
Even my coat.
I look for a note and there’s nothing. It’s like you were never here. The only thing to reassure myself you were is the smell of you on the pillow.
And I run downstairs and my heart can barely keep up and I wonder which way to go and maybe I missed you walking by to get a taxi. I’m moving fast and I’m not used to this and I see my coat and see you and you’re standing at a bakery.
I’m about to fucking die if I’m mistaken and you turn around smiling and beautiful and gleaming like nothing in the world could ever touch you and you say, “ I didn’t know where you where so I went to get us breakfast. “
I’m a liar. I love you.
BIO:
Mister Hennessy is currently a transient dreamer travelling the universe as a neutrino. Be good to each other and do what we can to have rewarding lives.