it wasn't where I left it

"you came to me like a dream, the kind that always leaves. just as the best part starts, it ends so abruptly and leaves you stunned and naked, in your bedroom all alone. funny how something so soothing gets interrupted by the ring of a telephone."
I slept better last night than I have in weeks. shiny was beside me in the bed, curled against the wall. I reached out and touched the soft fabric of his shirt. "that's my back," he said. "I know."
he made me tea and heated up soup and rubbed my head. it seems like I should feel more conflicted than I am. as we walked through the park, a friendship distance between us, I thought, "so this is how it's going to be."
it's going to be him visiting and us cuddling and me wanting him so badly that I can't talk because I'm afraid I'll say that magic phrase that will push him away. the phrase that will make him think this is a bad idea. I don't know if what I feel means I'm missing him. it's more like longing. or abject complacency.
I will never have what I want because what I want is him. and every time he rubbed his foot against mine or put his hand on my arm, I had to remind myself that it meant nothing. I had to remember him saying, "I don't want you."
I can't look into his eyes and ask him to say that. it would hurt too much.
in my little fantasy world, we begin to hang out again on some weekends. he would let himself feel again. he would kiss me. he would kiss me and hold me and we would be together again and this fucking hollowness would go away. and I wouldn't hurt or want to hurt anyone. I just ... I want to be ok. and I want him to be ok. and I want him to want the way that I do. want until it feels like nothing else matters; want until it consumes everything but the object of attention; want until it feels like there's no other possible outcome but to obtain the point of desire, and to have anything less would be giving up or death.
it had never occurred to me before that everyone doesn't feel that way.
change, any change, is death. I've known that since high school,before I could understand what I was feeling. I would lay in bed in agony and wish that I would die because the change hurt so badly.
but it would come, and it would pass, and I would still live.
live to see another change, when all I wanted was to die.
and in my fantasy world I finally reach the point where I can either die or be happy because those are the only two options. I'd rather live and be happy. content. reach that magic spot that doesn't exist. the place where things level out and I find my rhythm. I get my routine. and I love it.
but no, that doesn't exist.
instead I get these shades of grey. I get shiny coming to my house and letting me hold him like he was still mine. I get him calling me when I'm in the hospital. I get him singing to me. but it doesn't mean anything more than friendship to him. and I have to remind myself over and over that he doesn't want me. he cares, he loves, but he doesn't desire.
I just can't imagine living like that. I guess I'll have to, if I want to keep him in my life.[and isn't that the way chick and I are? but we never dated and we were never in love. so the mutuality matters? apparently so.]
I see my life unfold like a mottled grey quilt stretching over and covering obstacles. I see the bumps and valleys. I see this colorless mass and I read the story within it. I will be in love with him. we will see each other until one of us stumbles onto someone else. and I will always wonder why things didn't work. and I will always wish it was him, and not whoever I was with instead.
and maybe I've felt this way about everyone that I have loved. but I don't think so.
and I wonder if anyone's ever felt that way about me.
I wonder if anyone's ever been entirely taken by my elbows. if anyone has ever had a crush on the arch of my foot. if anyone has ever missed me so much that their arms tingled. I don't know. but that's what love is to me.
the entire time I was with ex-husband, I never got tired of watching him breathe.
four years of witnessing the expansion and deflation of a person's ribcage. it would make me ache.
always hands. always lips. always teeth. worn, full, weird. slender fingers with deep creased palms. softness to make me sigh. jagged points that I could run my finger across.
ex-otter used to bite me like he was eating. it wasn't sexual. ex-husband, too. I would let him chew on my finger. I liked the way it felt and I liked the trust involved. I would bite too hard, though. I've never had the same level of self-constraint as the people I have dated.
it's autumn.
I feel the grey skies keenly. I feel the trees baring themselves to winter. I feel it and I lock it inside of myself to deal with later. that's what this year has brought me. it opened up the boxes I used to keep hidden in my chest. I have been dealing and dealing and dealing and no wonder I am so emotionally exhausted.
being honest is such hard work.