I want to molest him with kisses every time he throws shadows on my door. Rub my tongue against his porcupine-quilled jaw, breathe onto his deep blue death eyes, stare up his nose and inhale. Instead I shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other as I pretend to listen to the verbiage of inconsequently tumbling from his mouth. My green porch light rains on his face like blarney stone kisses. Thoughts of naked Leprechauns bathing in lucky charms dance through my head as I stifle a laugh that will be misinterpreted.
Blah, blah, blah he goes on to say because he hasn't caught on that I'm not listening. Hasn't caught on that my sudden urge to crack him upside his head with a cast iron skillet and drag him unconscious and pliable to my waiting bed is the cause of the tears brimming in my eyes. He rushes to hug me, comfort me like only the clueless can. Strong arms wrapped around me in an embrace of sincerity that lacks intimacy. He rubs my back blah, blah, blah it'll be alright. And I fondle his bomber jacket wondering if it could be re-sewn into ass-less chaps.
He kisses my forehead just to torture me. Allows me to see just how soft his lips are without actually letting me feel them on the proper places. My hand balls into a fist. A last attempt to fight off the urge to grab his butt - to probe my fingers into his nether regions. I turn my face to his just in time to see a flash go through his eyes. Columbia blue dancing around navy like there's intelligent life behind that forced smile. Like he's not even listening to the bullshit he's spewing forth.
He breathes the breath of curiously strong mints into my nostrils giving me a contact high. Snow baubles dance around his head as I realize how cold I should be in my sweat-socked feet and short-sleeved tee in the December night. My first real thought since he decided to lean on my doorbell, daring me to answer. I lick my chops and invite him in.
He sits in something wingless by the fire. The stone mantle reminds me affectionately of his shoulders. I wonder under what kind of extreme pressure would they break. He leans forward, elbows to knees, hands rubbing temples and eyes plastered on the hard wood floor. The embers of the fire lovingly tease his features like the devil would a Pentecostal filled with the Holy Ghost.
I lie on the chaise lounge like a siren beckoning to a disinterested sailor. My song not enticing enough to reach him. His ears too deaf or too far away to hear. My arm dangles off the side like my wrist is slit. Like the weight of the escaping blood is too great for that arm to be returned to me.
And still he sits there in silence. His concern for my emotional state momentarily forgotten. His justified explanation for dropping by unannounced laid to rest, too. Sitting there on an ass I'd love to graze with my lips - search for soft peach hairs to yank from their roots. Listen in delight as he yelps in pain. The swell of my breasts, the tauntness of my tee against my erect, frozen nipples go unappreciated. Bikini cut, stark white undies hug the cleft of my sex all for naught, too.
Me in competition for attention with a floor. I don't need to look into the black hole of his eyes to see he's not in Kansas anymore. That he's ventured into territories darker than Emerald City. Places where the Wicked Witch is high priestess, the Cowardly Lion and Tin Man are warlock life partners and Dorothy is the most revered whore in the land. Places that he has gone before but refuses to take me along. Places he deems me too weak and impressionable to come back from unchanged.
I allow him all the time he needs to explore that dark place for I am much more intrigued by lust and annihilation than love and redemption. If he had known that then, he would have tried not to fall in love with me. Every time he looks at me I see it in the markings on his face - regret battling codependency. Two hearts stapled together where separation would mean death. And even in the certainty of death he might not be able to be rid of me. It's as if we discovered the secret to swapping souls and now he wants his back. He wants them both - his to live off of and mine to die. If God would allow it, it would be done, but like a mocking father catching his children in coitus, he disowned us - cursed us to forever sleep in the wet spot.
