Tuesday, December 09, 2003

Secrets and lies

I thought about it last night, about you, about me.

It scared the shit out of me at the time, back then, and really, what's the most frightening thing of all but the thing you want most handed to you? Because once you have it, what else is there to wish for or work toward or hold with? So yes, it scared me and clearly, it scared you because while I went past my fear, brushed the horror with my shoulder and plowed ahead, you gave in to it and ran away.

Everytime you think it's gone, that feeling, that remorse, that "what if?" speculation of heart and stretching of sinew reaching out to romance, straining until muscles corded under skin so thin you fear it would burst -- every time you snap back and wonder about it. You push and then remember you pushed before. Was it too hard or not hard enough? Assertive or timid? Was it the right time at the wrong place, or the right words with the wrong man, or the wrong belief in the wrong church?

Your timing is even worse than mine, you choosing to come back now, to revisit this, to reopen negotiations from the distance. I stand accused by friends and family of turning my back on love, of giving up and giving in to what is easy -- sensation, touch, in and out before the image can even register.

I hear them talk about the bloodlessness of it, the callowness of what must be...empty? Wan and wanting for nothing more than a...

The accusation has some merit, perhaps, but they have no standing, no cause to make it, because they have evidence of only the most circumstantial sort. And they will not ask further questions, will not go beneath the surface because they are afraid of the torn cloth, the blood and bloodlessness, the awful, messy, uncoordinated and unbeautiful truth. They will not beg certiorari to know what's gone before, because even though they don't know what it is or was, they believe it is not for them to know, not necessary to pass the judgement.

I wish you were serious about it. You must be, and perhaps you will, someday. Your hand in mine as we sleep. Hold me when I bleed, kiss me when I cry, lift me when I fall. You're more now than you were before, more than you imagined you could be then.

But it's not enough, not yet. Not enough for you. And certainly less than I'm willing to accept.

Turn my back on love? As if I could. How hard I've tried and how grandly I've failed. I have failed to do anything but stalk it and stand before it and stare at it, unmoving, a fixed point in the future, as steady as I am not. I have seen love, three times, and, knowing I will not see it again, I have chosen to keep it in my crosshairs.

Whatever the cost.