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Do you want this? A voice coming toward you. Toward, you think, is a direction that implies encounter or at least energetic force. Are we always facing towards something or someone? One way or another? My face, the warden of my back, always on alert. But I may face backwards, even as I press forward and into you, turning my face to the side.
These navigational words aren’t the right thing at all. You are drawn, pulled, slipped, hugged, avalanching, packed snow melting all over her. Orientations can’t account for the complexities of touch.
Something wanted: to be allowed your intuition as her voice comes close to your ear.
This week, I have been in bed, healing, growing into a body I have chosen. I spend an hour in the bath, keeping my torso above water, running a wash cloth up and down my arms, pouring cups of water over my head as I lean forward, observing each scar that stretches across my chest. From under my arms to the slight dip between my rib cage.
Almost touching.
In moments like this there is no orientation toward or away, although there is the tenderness of attraction you associate with sex. But this attraction is about gaining traction on yourself, refuge rather than advance, the glow of a lamp in an upstairs window, seen at night, from the sidewalk below. Someone inside the room is writing, glancing up now and again at their reflection in the glass.
How is it that you know you are both people? Or, no, all three? The reflection, the writer, and the voyeur, standing outside.
