She Was.

This is my fourth summer in two years. I’d forgotten how  much I love the dawning days of Australian summer. The suns shines so brightly but it’s not yet oppressively hot. The coming months of long heat hang in the air. I can’t taste it yet. I can still sleep through the alone nights. Outside, the grass is winter barefoot begging green and buds have opened to tentative caterpillar frightened leaves. Magnolia – it’s old fashioned candleholder loveliness and gooseberries tart on vanilla icecream framed by clear Southern skies.

Walking bare shouldered through city streets, nothing is different and I am not the same. “You’re back!” friends smile and I think, most literally, I am. At a snail’s pace. Eye stalks extended shyly, blinking at him, at me, in the blue. I turn my face and sniff the wind. It’s heavy with the possibility of what is to come. Heat.

Scorching burning maddening heat. Long lazy days suspended in water, feet buried in the sand, the navigation of islands, frustration, fire, sleepless sweaty limb sprawled nights, outside eating drinking beer, music too loud, and looseness. Always looseness. My own unfurling, my own letting go, my own surrender to possibility. I am heavy with it. Possibility. Of what is to come. I can almost taste it. On the tip of my tongue.

*   *   *

Tonight at work I thought he was going to kiss me. He called me out from behind the bar and as I turned the corner into the dark staircase we collided. His eyes dance with mine.

Last night whilst I was ironing the small pieces of fabric that make up my uniform, I took the kitchen scissors and cut a slit into my round neck tshirt, effectively turning it into a low v-neck. I stood infront of the full length mirror and laughed at the way having your heart broken helps to shift those last five unwanted kilos. I really don’t recognise myself. At 33 I probably look the best I’ve looked my entire life. I’m sure part of that can be attributed to a slow acceptance, an unfolding ease, something I could only fake in my 20’s. Standing infront of the mirror I was surprised by how overtly sexual I looked. This isn’t me.

The thing about infidelity is that it leaves you feeling sexually invisible. Obliterated.

Tonight at work I thought he was going to kiss me. Right there infront of everyone. I wanted him to. I didn’t step back when we collided, I just reached out and touched him, left my hand on his chest, my other hand on his arm. I didn’t move away from his hand on my stomach, his hand wrapped around my wrist. His eyes everywhere but my face. I don’t remember being looked at like that before. Being seen. Being wanted. Being obvious. We didn’t kiss. I love this long, slow, burn.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been good enough. I don’t believe in my worth. I don’t believe in my attractiveness. I don’t trust my judgment. I don’t trust that I should write about this.

I don’t believe men with crinkly blue eyed smiles and hands that graze my hips in the dark. I don’t trust this timing. I don’t trust this flood of desire (again). I don’t believe his hand rests for a fraction too long on my knee as he places the packet on my lap. I don’t trust the way that he looks away when he smiles. I don’t trust that he will do everything he says that he is going to do, even though he does. I don’t believe that he calls when he says he is going to. I don’t trust his broad shoulders or too loud car. I don’t believe that I make him laugh. I don’t trust the sparkle he puts in my eyes. I don’t trust myself. I don’t trust him. I don’t trust that this will go anywhere. I expect to be rejected. I expect it to go wrong. I expect that I won’t be good enough. I expect that I am imagining this. I expect to be disappointed. I expect to make an idiot of myself. I expect to second guess and over analyse and run away and back off and stumble and stutter and close in and withdraw.

The hands that touch me? I want them there. I want him. I want to taste him and hold him and listen to him and help him and be with him and sit with him and know him. I want to trace the wrinkles around his eyes with my fingertips. I want to curl my fingers through his greying hair. I want to drink with him and drive in his car with him and know him. I want to know him. And I don’t want any of this. I want to fantasize from afar, fuck him alone in my bed at night, (safe) I want him to never know, I want to keep this to myself, never act on it, smile through the moments when I stand near him (safe), drag this nothing everything moment on forever, never risking anything, never touching him, feeling again, just a little, knowing that this heart isn’t broken – just fucked up. I want to swim in this potential, go down in it. Mine. His. This.

These stories I tell myself. These stories I weave together from fragments of bitten off truths. I don’t like these words. I don’t like these stories. I don’t like this mapping. This hammering in. Of fence posts. Of boundaries. The edges of who I am and what I will be. I don’t approve of this closing in. When I map this relationship, when I try to find out the whys, when I ask my ill-conceived questions, when I soothe your bad day to probe your heart, when I walk away and all I have is my own two hands, I don’t like my makings. All I’ve ever done is delimit the lines between you and I. Not you. The other you’s. With my warm heart and my kindest nature.

I’m raw. Flimsy, transparent layers create an opaque wet core. I want to make your eyes sting. I can make your eyes sting.

Knowing Ignorance. One way silence.

These are the differences. From small things big stories unravel. Unravelled yarn re-spun better. I know you know. I know you know I know. I know you now. I know who you are. I know what you said, what you did, what you didn’t.

You don’t know me though. You can’t know me. No matter how much you stalk these pages, you dont know me. Friend. Lover. Past.

I’m freer than I thought. Better than I knew. Stronger than I hoped.

I’m a performer. When I’m outside. When they talk to me. And home alone I’m brushing off someone else’s spinning. Sticky threads across my face. The recoil when you first stumble into it. Shiver. Disgust. Prey. Ingestible.

I’m noticed. I think it’s the new uniform. The reflection in the wall to wall mirrors catches me by surprise. I turn and stare, open mouthed. She’s arrogant, I think. Fast. Reveals nothing. Small talk smiles, for the duration of time it takes to make your quick fuck or your french pussy. Concentration poured into every layered drink. She’s told she’s conscientious, sweet, lovely, fucking sexy in those fishnets – stony faced bitch.  When your drink is served and your money poured into her sticky hand, you cease to exist. She doesn’t remember your face, not the first time or the second time or the third time. Each time ‘what’ll it be?’. Entertainment dispensed. I stare at her and I don’t recognise her, but I know I want to be her. Just like her.

You don’t know me. I don’t know me either. Anymore. Not since you. But I’m ready for what comes next.

I’m ready for what comes next.