Boundaries

It was after their fourth or fifth time together that Nathan told Sarah, “I love you”. To be more precise, he said, “I think I love you”. He was sitting on her bed, pulling on his briefs. She was standing by the sink, naked, brushing her teeth. “You shouldn’t love me” she said. “Why not?, he asked. “Because to me love means fucking one guy in the morning, then another guy in the afternoon, in order to pour all the life from the second fuck into the first guy when you fuck him again the next morning”. “You’re crazy”, he said. “Of course I am. You wouldn’t love me if I were whole.” At that moment, her back, a sea of soft white, became hard and black, like burnt charcoal. “There’s such a thing as too much honesty in a relationship”, he said. “I didn’t know we had a relationship”, she replied. At that moment, they both knew it would be their last night together. He decided to fuck her hard until morning.

In the morning, they had breakfast together. The TV was on. They watched the news. “This was fun”, Sarah said, but Nathan smiled sheepishly when he closed the door, which she bolted behind him. She walked to the table and deleted his number from her phone. Then she lay down on her bed and cried. “I’m such a stereotype”, she thought, as she willed herself to fall asleep. The breakfast coffee had done its work though, and her consciousness refused to surrender. So she reluctantly sat up, then stood, and walked to the closet to pull on a sweater. There was much to be done that day: calls to be answered, research to be done for a paper she was to present at a women’s conference in Georgia…and then there was poor Mitch. Lately, she’d been so busy screwing Nathan that she’d completely neglected their relationship. So she picked up the phone. “Hey Mitch”, she asked, “want to come over for dinner?”. “Sure”.

They got halfway through the main course before Mitch cleared his throat and asked, “How are things going with Nathan?”.

Sarah laughed. “You can guess by my silence”, she said.

“So you broke up? He was a bum.”

“You’re just saying that to be nice.” she said.

He shrugged. “Hey, that’s what friends are for, right? Please pass the wine. By the way, the chicken is excellent.”

“Thank you”.

He knew that cooking, or rather, the quality of her cooking, was important to her– she was always trying to one-up her mother. Suddenly he realized that was oedipal. He shuddered. “What?” she asked. “What do you meant what?” “You just made a face”. “I was thinking about Freud”, he said. “Ah. I see”, she replied. She was always teasing him that it was because he was crazy that he wanted to become a therapist. He never argued, because he wasn’t certain she was wrong.

Afterwards, sitting on the couch, wine-glasses in hand, cake on the coffee-table, their talk turned to romance. Mitch had not been having much luck lately in that department. “I just don’t know what women want”, he complained, “When I share my emotions, they tell me I’m too soft. When I hide them, they tell me I’m too hard.” She giggled. “Sorry.” She patted him on the arm. “You’re just too good for them Mitch – besides, women are crazy; everyone knows that!” He snorted. “Some great feminist you are”. “I’m a woman. It’s ok for me to be sexist.” He laughed. It was nearly 1 am. “I should go”, he said. “Sure”, she replied, and he knew she was dreading sleeping alone that night. He knew because she had told him, two boyfriends ago, that that was the hardest part of any breakup. “Sleeping alone gives me insomnia”, she had said. He had told her to see a therapist. She hadn’t laughed.

“Thanks for coming over”.

“This was nice. We should hang out again when I get back from my borderline personality conference in Texas”.

“Sure. Call me.”

He did. They went out for pizza. Afterward, she asked him to come back to her place so she could show him a poem she had written; Mitch had worked for a famous literary magazine in his three years between college and grad school, so she respected his opinion.

So he read:

Let me lure you into the liminalities of my body, the forest-strewn borders of my thighs: A lion roars between these two freckles. Here, a monkey sticks his hands in the openings of a lover. Flowers with purple petals wilt over grass surrounded by pine-trees. Pine-trees – is that too phallic? No matter, we can start over: That is the beauty of borders, their snaking softness of unknown – In this jungle, we can forget the tundras we have crossed, axe-in-hand, to get to this new world in which your tongue crawls into my crevices, and your hands whisper words your teeth have forgotten. You may need a passport: Here, let me dot your arms with the ink of my kisses; Now sign my breasts, please. In order to get to the valley, you must cross the mountains. Mountains – is that also phallic? No, mountains double like the soul of a woman, or like your thighs. I am running out of words to put on this brochure. If I leave, you will not get a postcard. I hear that my cunt grows some awesome fruit. Take a bite, and try.

“Well?”

“I hate the word “liminalities”.

She rolled her eyes. “And?”

“And it’s good – it’s very good.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“No, I’m not just saying that. I’m a guy –I’m honest, remember?”

She laughed. The football game was on, so they cracked open some beers.

“I always wanted to go to a sports-bar and do guy things”, she said.

“Guy things?”

“Yeah, you know – like checking out girls and making rude comments, and belching really loudly”.

“None of the guys I know do that.”

She shrugged.

“No, I mean really – which guys actually do that?”

She thought for a minute and said, “Guys from Long Island”.

He laughed. “You’re so lucky I’m a New Yorker, so I get that.”

“Yeah, it’s why we’re friends”.

“I thought you were friends with me for my charm”.

“No, actually, for your modesty.”

He laughed.

Afterwards they were silent for a while, except for the occasional groan related to the Jets’ performance.

Then, during halftime, she suddenly said, “I tend to collect broken men like stranded puppies”.

“I know – it’s why I could never date you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because then I’d be proving to myself that I’m broken, or stranded – or both.”

“But whether you prove it to yourself or not, that doesn’t change the truth”.

He shrugged. She leaned over, slowly picked up the beer can, and sipped it the way one would sip a glass of hot tea.

“Actually I could date you, I just couldn’t fuck you”.

She laughed. “Why not? Some men find me quite attractive, you know”.

“It’s because you use words like “liminalities””, he teased.

She laughed, but he didn’t kiss her that night – it would have ruined the effect.

He did not even kiss her on the night they watched Frida, and he let his hand roam the lengths of her body. It was cold, and she was wearing a sweatshirt. They had both drunk a bit too much wine. He started gently, stroking her back. She breathed like she was having an orgasm. She was not wearing a bra, and he could feel her softness, juxtaposed with the hardness of her nipples. “That’s what’s essential in every good work of art”, he thought, ”contrast”.

It was only the third time, right before he said goodnight, that he allowed his lips to skim hers, but she sucked him in, slowly, and he was melting into the wet vortex of Being. His consciousness was floating on some fourth plane that can only be charted by those who have loved.

The next day, he asked her, “Do you believe in love?”.

“I don’t know”, she said, “do you?”.

“I don’t know”.

They laughed. She popped in the DVD and fell back on the couch. He held her hand. It was rough, dry, and desperately in need of moisturizer, but he kept on holding.

A Tranny Called Wanda

You don't have a lover, she asks?
No.
She streaks the red lipstick across her lips, squinting at her face in the mirror. Then who keeps you company?
My unwanted desires.
But that can not leave you - she pauses, flourishing the lipstick and shaking her breasts - satisfied.
It doesn't, she says, and she thinks, you kissed me last night, you fucking kissed me, and I sucked the skin in between the bones of your rib-cage like my father sucks his steak.
Men are the best pills for insomnia. She puts down the lipstick. They are also the best antidepressants.
You kissed me. You fucking kissed me. Cunt. Whore.
She smiles. Ready. Want to go out for coffee? Also, there's a new book I want to buy.

She thinks of her mother saying to her father, "You kill me with your silences". Her mother was holding a steak knife; the half-eaten red meat sat between them.
Raw.
What is that you said?
Raw. I was thinking of the weather.
Mmm.

They are already out the door, which locks firmly behind them - one of those automatic locks, for they live in a neighborhood marked by hookers: They live on Wanda street, named after the tranny Mama who likes purple eyeliner.

Who do you like better, they once asked, the men or the women?
Honey, at least men are silent. Women? They're some of the noisiest love-makers I've ever seen.

Men aren't silent with me, she whispered, and for a second, you thought she was going to hold your hand, but then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. No, you thought, I'm not silent either. But you were silent that night, with your mother, with the steak knife.

What was there to say?

No quotation marks tonight: Joyce didn't always use em. Also, listened to too much Cher.

You don't have a lover, she asked?

No.

She streaked the red lipstick across her lips, squinting at her face in the mirror.

Then who keeps you company?

My unwanted desires.

But that can not leave you - she paused, flourishing the lipstick and shaking her breasts - satisfied.

It doesn't, she says, and she thinks, you kissed me last night, you fucking kissed me, and I sucked the skin in between the bones of your rib-cage like my father sucks his steak.

Men are the best pills for insomnia. She puts down the lipstick. They are also the best antidepressants.

You kissed me. You fucking kissed me. Cunt. Whore.

She smiled. Ready. Want to go out for coffee? Also, there is a new book I want to buy.

She thinks of her mother saying to her father, "You kill me with your silences". Her mother was holding a steak knife, and the half-eaten red meat sat between them.

Raw.

What is that you said?

Raw. I was thinking of the weather.

Mmm.

They are already out the door, which locks firmly behind them - one of those automatic locks, for they live in a neighborhood marked by hookers: They live on Wanda street, named after the tranny Mama who likes purple eyeliner.

Who do you like better, they once asked, the men or the women?

Honey, at least men are silent. Women? They're some of the noisiest love-makers I've ever seen.

Men aren't silent with me, she whispered, and for a second, you thought she was going to hold your hand, but then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. No, you thought, I'm not silent either. But you were silent that night, with your mother, with the steak knife. What was there to say?

You have become silent like a man, your mother said.

Fuck you, you think, I could suck the skin between your bones like a piece of thigh - your favorite part of the chicken, my favorite part of a woman - and a man, I suppose, when I can catch them. But they are tiny and slippery, like flies. If only I were a frog, beautiful and green, and unrelated to the human who stands before me.

Another thought to keep you company when you can not fall asleep.

Brush-strokes

Remember, she said, the mind is like a machine, and you must always use it.
Yes, let me become efficient, like your stockings.
Fuck you.
I can fuck you.
Don't come nearer. We haven't fucked in ages. Why is that? I'm not letting you until I have an - no, no, stop.
All right.
Her hand rested on the top of the thickset gray that had now fallen to halfway between her knees and her thighs.
Pantyhose.
What?
Those aren't stockings, they're panty-hose. Stockings are held up by a garter.
That's sexy.
Laughter.

They were both on the floor, laughing, when he walked in.
What's so funny?
Nothing.
He nodded, and went on to the kitchen to grab himself a coke from the fridge.

Women.

According to Talmud Brachot, if you cite your sources, you bring redemption to the world. This means I'm a redeemer, which means I am Christ. Yay!

I've been reading a bio of Clarice Lispector, a Brazilian Jewish author. The bio is by Benjamin Moser. It is good and contains many lengthy excerpts of her work, being part psychological analysis, part literary analysis, sociology and history lesson, as well as a life narrative. I feel like this has influenced my writing this week.

Here is a link to the bio: http://www.amazon.com/Why-This-World-Biography-Lispector/dp/019538556X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324028708&sr=1-1

Let me

Let me write you a poem. Let me fill it with blueberries, soft-scented skin, and toes skimming the grass. Let me add a few kisses, and a really nice ass. Let me add the slow distancing of each other's bodies: Two faces lie apart on a wet white pillow. A cool breeze flows in through a half-open window, stars almost discernible between the blind's wides slats. One of the faces is crowned in red hair; the other bejeweled in tears. I might throw in a cliche, like "the sum of my fears" - or a bad rhyme scheme. Everything seems better in rhyme - that's why I write breakup poems. I don't want you to get the wrong idea of course - I could still shroud myself in the silences of your body, or sniff your sweat like a cocaine addict sniffing white powder - but tonight, let me merely poeticize the prose of our feelings, that once were songs. And pretend that coining neologisms makes me as brilliant as Shakespeare. Wait, poeticize is in the Merriam-Webster dictionary? Damn.

Tonight

I was going to share a poem tonight - I wrote it about how much you hurt me. Then I knew our relationships was over, because I no longer trusted you enough to let you see my words. I wish that we could fly back to a time when I longed for your embraces, when your laughter ignited my own, when I basked in your presence. Now we sit across from the table in silence. Sometimes you chatter and I grit my teeth, forcing myself not to yell in order to releive myself from the sound of your voice. Tonight, tonight what - don't I still need you, in a way so much more fleeting than the way you need me? Tomorrow, will we really go our separate ways? Each time you break me, you break me a little more. Is tonight then, the moment when the crystalline peices will shatter? Shall I pick myself up in my translucence, trying to dance in a way that captures the light? But I have become black and absorbent, like the night's wind. If only I could have escaped by one hour - but no, I had made my promises. Already, I feel the slight sensation of wanting to know that you love me, but I still remember the morning, when I was six, when you told me I was no longer your sugarplum, I was no longer sweet - and you kept your promise. You never called me that again. You told me you would love me unconditionally, but I know that you lied. I am sick of accusing you; the Inquisition was stopped for a reason. So go, live in your ignorance, but first strike the chains that lie between us.

The Temple of Loneliness

Everyday I annoint myself with oil, smelling of myhrr and cinnamon. On Thursdays, they let us mix in jasmine and a little bit of honey. Fridays are consecrated to rose water. Every night, I wait for you not to come. I relish the taste of your non-presence on my tongue. I feel the white silk sheets flow between my legs, allow them to caress my breasts and thighs. I wait for your silence and imagine you climbing a window whose trellis is crowned by a green plant that is not quite beautiful. In your left hand, you clutch a bunch of oranges. You right hand grips the trellis like the hair of a lover. She is sitting on her bed, her blonde hair falling onto the white sheets. She laughs, balancing a guitar on her lap. The dark brown walls frame her body. They tell me that soon I might be promoted - they might make me a preistess, even. They might dip my body in vinegar, murmuring words in a language I do not understand, daring me to hug them. You must not touch them, must not inhale the lavender scent of their bodies, must not encounter their water-textured skin. It is rumored that their lips taste like cherries. When I am a priestess, I want my tongue to taste like strawberries. Then I will lie at night, on a bigger bed, soaked in the blood of flowers, fading like a soundwave into your thundering Silence.

Numbers

The numbers represent chronological order, not order of preference, and just because something is most recent doesn't mean I like it most or least. Right now I'm leaning towards anger 3, though all these are works in progress.

I also feel sweat-stains are usually smaller than hands, but somehow find the idea of the sweat-stain being larger than the hand to be more appealing, artistically, and figure it is a small enough suspencion of so-called reality that readers will forgive me - also, while unlikely, it is technically possible.

Anger 4

I have learned to swallow your fear;
every day I grow slightly more swollen
with the bitterness of abandoned dreams that you spit out
like saliva, a wet kiss I sip with my cup of coffee.

I have learned not to retain the sodium of our kisses,
to spit out the salt of desire that once slept
in the space between my tongue and my teeth.

I do not sleep anymore.

My belly aches with caffenaited anger the color of your hair -
burnt chestnut, a dye-worthy shade.

I have learned to swallow your fear,
but I have not yet learned how to swallow my words -

let me gag them now, onto this paper,
and hope it leaves a stain on the cuffs of your dignity,
slightly smaller than the stain of your sweat upon my yet-to-be-laundered sheets -
slightly bigger than your hand upon my thigh.

Anger 3 - yes, I can be obsessive at times

I have learned to swallow your fear;
every day I grow slightly more swollen
with the bitterness of abandoned dreams that you spit out
like saliva, a wet kiss I sip with my cup of coffee.

I have learned not to retain the sodium of our kisses,
to spit out the salt of desire that once slept
in the space between my tongue and my teeth.

I do not sleep anymore.

My belly aches with caffenaited anger the color of your hair -
burnt chestnut, a dye-worthy shade.

I have learned to swallow your fear,
but I have not yet learned how to swallow my words -

let me gag them now, onto this paper,
and hope it leaves a stain on the cuffs of your dignity,
slightly smaller than the stain of your sweat upon my yet-to-be-laundered sheets -
slightly bigger than the mark of your hand upon my thigh.

Anger 2

I have learned to swallow your fear;
every day I grow slightly more swollen
with the bitterness of abandoned dreams that you spit out
like saliva, a wet kiss I sip with my cup of coffee.

I have learned not to retain the sodium of our kisses,
to spit out the salt of desire that once slept
in the space between my tongue and my teeth.

I do not sleep anymore.

My belly aches with caffenaited anger the color of your hair -
burnt chestnut, a dye-worthy shade.

I have learned to swallow your fear,
but I have not yet learned how to swallow my words -

let me gag them now, onto this paper,
and hope it leaves a stain on the cuffs of your dignity,
a slight scent of shame on your thighs.

Creative Process

Because I'm pretty sure when I started this it was supposed to blog my "creative process" (whatever the heck that means), here are my edits from the just posted poem:

I roam the hallways of the internet, rubbing my belly
that aches from anger and coffee

- "Nothing like giving a bitch a good belly rub",
you said, your hands stroking the puppy

you always rubbed the bitches' bellies
when we saw dogs on the street - afterwards, your hands smelled of dog drool

rubbing my belly
like a pregnant woman, knowing that in the morning
I will not feel the future of our relationships slip out between my thighs,

waiting to see
the not-living creature that will slip out from between

for my water to break,

Anger

I have learned to swallow your fear;
every day I grow slightly more swollen
with the bitterness of abandoned dreams that you spit out
like saliva, a wet kiss I sip with my cup of coffee.

I have learned not to retain the sodium of our kisses,
to spit out the salt of desire that once slept
in the space between my tongue and my teeth.

I do not sleep anymore.

My belly aches with caffenaited anger the color of your hair -
burnt chestnut, a dye-worthy shade.

I have learned to swallow your anger,
but I have not yet learned how to swallow my words -

let me gag them now, onto this paper,
and hope it leaves a stain on the cuffs of your dignity,
slightly smaller than the stain of your sweat upon my yet-to-be-laundered sheets -
slightly bigger than the mark of your hand upon my thigh.

Rivkah speaks to Yitzhak

Genesisl 25:21: כא וַיֶּעְתַּר יִצְחָק לַיהוָה לְנֹכַח אִשְׁתּוֹ, כִּי עֲקָרָה הִוא; וַיֵּעָתֶר לוֹ יְהוָה, וַתַּהַר רִבְקָה אִשְׁתּוֹ. And Isaac entreated the LORD for his wife, because she was barren; and the LORD let Himself be entreated of him, and Rebekah his wife conceived.

The wind is cold between us; flames' shadows
paint the wall, and I remember the red when I bound you to my thighs.

Your arms were soft, silk chords to bind me to our bed.
Your lips tasted of cinnamon, on the night when I bound you to my thighs.

You tasted the dust, when he bound you to a bed of shadows -
I could taste the dirt on the skin around your neck, when I bound you to my thighs -

You told me I tasted of persimmons -hard and cold, like this wind
that hovers between us, now that I no longer bind you to my thighs.

Your lips kiss words I do not understand - you tell me you feel His presence,
hovering like a lover, waiting to bind you to His mercy -

Years ago, you kissed dust as your father's arms bound you
like the silk of our bed, and there He bound you to His mercy -

your first lover, an imageless God who binds me to you,
even now, when you have become unbound from my thighs,

and my body grows drier than these dratted desert breezes,
because you have become unbound from my thighs.

Tired

"I am too tired to move", she said, but his lips were already working their way in between her breasts. "Burrowing", she thought, "like those beavers in Chronicles of Narnia", and she wasn't quite sure why she thought of the reference. "I don't love you", she said. He shrugged. "What makes you think I love you?". The only answer was the night's silence. She could see the stars hanging, frozen, off of the blue bed of a night sky. "I wish I were like the stars", she thought, "nestled in sheets that hugged my body", but of course, who needed sheets when you had a man's body? "Men make the best blankets", she said later, when they were both in bed. He nodded sleepily, and she felt grateful for his weight beside her.

And this is the point where the high of insomnia turns into sheer tiredness, like ripped lace, or something, in this giant book of metaphors I seem to have forgotten, in this longing for sleep the way virgins long for sex, and all I am thinking of now is the first chapter of kings, where david gets a young virgin to warm his aging body.

What did she think when she shared his bed? What did he think when he felt her beside him, and no longer felt the familiar rising between the legs? I want to hug him then, to let him cry, to put his cheek to my breasts and whisper that it will be ok, that he is king, that he is a man, because to be a man is to be more than king, because what could be more beautiful than to conquer the land of a woman's body?

Right now my land remains unoccupied - waiting for a new tenant, I suppose, or maybe an owner, even - baal. A word that means husband, owner, man, and god. In ancient near eastern society, were they not the same?

Enough with the feminist critique. It rattles my ears, like pearls left out in a cardboard box, being shaken by a young boy who does not understand their worth, but a woman'sn worth is beyond pearls, even - or maybe beyond rubies.

Who can tell? I wear neither to bed - only a strip of lace, and a blanket of tiredness to cover this body, these legs that have walked today, these hands that have held hands and this mouth that has smiled, these fingers that have typed these words, only to slowly disentangle from the keyboard like an abandoning lover before morning.

For the Sake of Full Disclosure

I did once discuss Georgia O'Keefee's armpit hair with a romantic partner when the two of us were in a cab on the way to the opera. In case you are wondering, our relationship survived the experience.

Disclaimer

I really resent it when people assume fiction is autobiography - yet, because I am a girl who enjoys sniffing (legal) things, and likes Georgia O'Keeffe, as well as a college graduate who has been mistaken for a lesbian and is in fact a feminist, I feel it necessary to post a disclaimer that the story from the previous post is fiction, not autobiography. I know I should not give in to the people who assume these things, but at the end of the day the thought of someone thinking that's a scene from my life, when its not, bothers me. Then again, a writer shouldn't really cares whether or not people think she's crazy, becaue it can discourage her from taking risks.

Sabotage (A College Romance)

"You have gorilla pits", he teased. She laughed. "I told you I was a lesbian." "Actually, you told me you were a feminist. I told you you were a lesbian", he said, reaching for her bra. "You are aware that lesbians don't take their bras off for men?" she asked, resisting. "Actually, I thought lesbians don't wear bras", he replied, undoing the clasp. " "Did you know there are these nude pictures of Georgia O'Keeffe, by Steiglitz, where she has armpit hair?" she asked. She could feel his lips on her nipple. "Would you fuck her?" He stopped, disentangled. "What? Who?" "Georgia O'Keeffe" "I'm not a necro", he said. "Good. Just checking", she teased, a smile playing in the corners of her mouth. She waited for him to resume, but he just stood there, still crouching slightly. "Get up" she said, in what she hoped was a sexy voice. He got up, and she kissed him, her left palm leaning on the rim of a sink that smelled of flowers and pubic hair.

The next morning, he would catch her sniffing the sheets when he went to brush his teeth. "I always wanted to know the smell of man-sweat on linen", she said. "You're crazy", he replied, but she knew from his laughter that he found it charming. She could not know that their breakup would smell of tears and strawberries.

Night Time

Your hands were bigger than the moon when they circled my thighs,
and my skin was soft in the light that spread over freshly laundered sheets
the color of butter and moonlight.

Like the tide, I drifted in and out of your shore.

The sand has dried up and the moon has fallen.

You have left me stranded, here on this island of metaphors,
as if words could encompass the pain that has fallen between us
like silence.

No Woman No Cry/Nao Chore Mais

A Short Preface: The Title is based on the Bob Marley/Gilberto Gil songs - the Gil song is a remake of the Marley song. Since some of you know a bit about my life, I feel it necessary to say that while this is very loosely based on my life, it is fiction, and in no way resembles my life closely enough to be called autobiographical. Also, for the record, I take the privacy of my relationships very seriously, despite my blogging habit. I wrote this to practice writing a short story that actually followed some kind of plot, since that is one of my greatest challenges as a writer. So its very much a work in progress that I might use as material to turn into something else later on.
*********************************************************************************


"What does it matter? We are dead to you", she said, turning away with a flash of her hair. In her hand, she held a remote control that was poised like a projectile missile, ready to attack the first who dared to approach her thinning body.
"This is real life Mom. Not some kind of telenovella." The voice was flat, like underbaked bread.
"Where do you think they get telenovellas from? Real life! This is real life!"
She laughed. "This is your life, not mine."
"And what is yours then?"
"Well, let's see...I think right now I'm going to take my bag and go fuck my Arab boyfriend. Then I'm going to go to a bar and get wasted, maybe a little high. You like it when I fuck Arabs mom, don't you?"
The remote missed its mark. She laughed. "You should be careful about throwing things. One of these days I might learn how to throw back. But hey, at least you're not hitting me anymore, right?"
The door slammed behind her. The night was cool, and she could feel the fall air ruffling her brown hair against her cheeks. She pulled her jacket tighter around her. The streets were full of laughing people coming back from the opera. The women were wearing heels, their hair done up in sleek bones her hands had never seemed to master. The men were wearing suits and the smiles of those who expect to get laid. She walked up the steps of Lincoln Center to look at the waterfall - the water was shaped like mermaids today, and she could see the waves dancing, showing off for a crowd of tourists to enamored of the photos they would put on Facebook to pay any attention to the way one stream was showing off her liquid-clear hips, while another bobbed her thighs. As for the opera-lovers, they were too enamored of each other to feel the life in the circles of water that stood in the center of the plaza. A breeze came up, and she rushed into the Starbucks across the street, where she ordered a vanilla latte, opened her laptop, and began pouring all of her venom onto Facebook. The flatness of her voice in real life was replaced by a virtual scream. She looked at her watch. Half an hour and she'd head over to Jerry's.

By the time she did so, she was feeling slightly calmer, as if her anger were a snake bite that Facebook had sucked the venom out of her, "the way Roberto Benigni sucks that woman's thigh in "Life is Beautiful"", she thought, feeling herself grow slightly horny - which on the whole, was not an inappropriate feeling to have on the way to one's boyfriend, she reminded herself. When she got to Jerry's however, she could tell from the minute he opened the door that he was pissed.
"Did you write about me on my blog?" he asked.
"Yeah. But no on reads that blog - its just like, my friends, and you."
"Oh good. Because it's not like I know your friends or anything, not like I might be embarrassed."
"I'm sorry, ok? I won't do it again."
"What the hell? That stuff was in cyberspace - who knows who read it - you can't just take that back! Is our relationships some kind of refuse that you need to shit out onto the world-wide web in your constant spasms of vebal diarhea?"
"Jesus, Jerry - that is probably the most disgusting metaphor I've ever heard. And I write porn for a living - I've read the Marquis de Sade, for God's sake!"
"Well I'm sorry my metaphor isn't up to your literary standards."
"That's not what I meant - I" she sat down on a chair and buried her head in her hand, "This isn't working. I don't know what this is - but it isn't working - and I want it to work, because I love you, but -" She was crying. He walked over to her and stroked her hair. "Shh!", he said, "Shh!" But they knew it was over, and when she walked out of his apartment half an hour later, she felt oddly free - and still slightly horny. "Damn. We should have at least had break-up sex", she thought.

When she got home, her mother was washing dishes. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"Nothing."
"Don't nothing me. I'm your mother. I know. Somebody hurt my baby." With that, she began to walk around the kitchen, soapy knife in hand, crying hysterically, "Somebody hurt my baby. Somebody hurt my baby.", like some sort of mantra.
"God, this woman should be meds", the daughter thought, but she pulled her mother to her breasts, and stroked her graying hair, whispering, "Shh! Nao chore Mae, nao chore", and she could feel the slight shivering of the head beneath her hands. She wondered if this was what Jerry had felt like, stroking the hair of a woman he no longer cared about in the way he had before, but she also knew that when she walked out of her mother's apartment, she would not be free of the bond that tied them - she would never be free, never move on to find a new mother, a new body to keep her warm at night. She felt her body letting go of her mother's body. "I'm going to bed", she said.
"You're my life. I don't sleep at night - I stay up, worrying about you." The words were feirce in their passion - "but what is passion if not posession", the daughter wondered? She walked away, not because she wanted to ignore, but because she could not think of an honest response.
"Frederico Fellini once said "Happiness is being able to tell the truth without hurting others", she thought bitterly, as she lay down and cried.

Noah (edited)

I remember the nights when you held me in the darkness. Now I lie alone, the straw smelling of sweat and semen. But I know that you have not lost it with me, this life-force, and then you complain of feeling depleted. Wash your hands, you pervert, and take a shower! Your skin smells of horse-shit, and you no longer let me run my fingers through you hair. Thunder peels down the sky, but I can not see the lightning, stuck here in the wooden box that floats. I turn over, praying the straw will smell better on your side of the mattress. It doesn't. I lay awake listening to the chatter of monkeys and the lonely cries of the nightingales, wishing you could hear my silence.

*********************************************************************************************

"Camels are so not sexy", you said to me, when I came to your house for the first time. All the other suitors had horses. But over time, our lives became steady like the camel, you and I, long and drawn, safe and not needing much water. I always feared the day you would long for the swiftness of camels. Then the flood came, and I was releived - we were the only ones left now, you and I, in this wooden floating tomb.

But I have seen the way that your eyes turn down when I walk into our cabin, so I have chosen only to return once your eyes are closed. Are you lying there tonight, dreaming? Or are you thinking of the many men you could have chosen, and the freshness of their cold corpses? I rub my hand against the camel's fur; my palm slowly crawls into the spot where you hands once dwelt, and when it is over, the white stain on the wood is small. I will clean it up tomorrow, with the camel droppings. I will drop both into the waters that have learned to drown our silence, and it is only the rustling of the straw between us that reminds me you are real. I have replaced your kisses with a bucket of camel droppings.

Couldn't it at least have been horse-shit? Camels are so not sexy.

Scene

"It's a prose poem", she said.
"I don't know B. I'm a simple guy. Something's poetry, or it's prose. I don't like the in betweens".
'Sure you do.", she said, smiling. "You're in between me all the time", she said, playing with his fingers.
He laughed. "Yes, but that's a different kind of in between entirely", he said, drawing her closer.
She smiled, and their kiss tasted of the cherries they had had for breakfast that morning.
"Have I told you today that I love you?"
She shook her head.
"Well I do."
She laughed. "Thanks." she said, "I know."
He laughed. "Whatever happened to I love you to?"
"It gets boring."
He smiled. "You're so silly" he said.
She scoffed. "Silly is a word you use to describe puppies."
He groaned. The entire morning would be about appeasing her now. At least it meant they would spend the morning in bed.
"Your lips tasted of cherries" she said.
He looked at her.
"Just now", she explained, "did my lips taste of cherry too?"
He grinned. "Well that depends - do you like cherry?"
"I want an honest answer". She elbowed him, but he could tell she was growing softer. "I am melting her like a marshmallow before the flame" he thought, "and our relationship is one gigantic bonfire."
His kiss was slower this time, "more like cherry cordial because it leaves an after-taste", she thought, "God I hope I don't get hungover."

The morning was measured in suspended breaths and sunlight melding in and out of shadows that played on white sheets - and the rustling of thighs.

"Anytime you write about love it should involve the rustling of thighs", she said.
"Yes, you do like thighs", he teased.
"Why not?" she smiled. "Thighs are a perfectly respectable part of the body."
He laughed. "Maybe", he said, "but I also like lips and neck, and breasts...." and his hands were winding their way through her body.
"You're such a pervert", she teased.
"I'm a pervert! You're the one who writes porn for a living."
"But at least I'm good at it", she said.
He laughed. 'There's no denying that.", he said.
She smiled. "I see you're working on giving me new material", she teased.
He did not answer; his lips were pressed against her collarbone.

The night was meaured in the shifting of shadows and moonlight, the crumpling of sheets and the rustling of thighs.

Tonight, Walking Home from the Bus Stop

I am writing to write tonight, I think. I envision Argentinian soccer players, but that's not very poetic, even though one day someone will write a paean to their bodies -even though I have no idea what a paean is.

I wish I were more poetic, but how can I be when I no longer read poetry? I have been isolated from my sea of books, set apart to run adrift in a world of endless procrastination, when I would so much rather immerse myself in the pleasures of your body.

It's funny, the way I thought of you tonight, after so long. I didn't miss you, exactly - if you were here now, I would probably reject your advances. Maybe I'd even cry - did I ever let you see my tears? I don't remember - our relationship has become no more than a string of images:

The two of us sitting on a wooden bench, on a concrete block overlooking dying flowers.

The tree where you first told me that you love me.

Holding hands in an abandoned building, presenting you with a blue dente to match your t-shirt and the color of your eyes; fingering the necklace against your chest as we lie on my couch, your brown hair against the pink sheets of my bed, your glasses.

I even remember your eyes. That's odd - I don't usually remember men's eyes. I can remember other body parts, but the eyes always elude me. But your eyes pulled and tugged like a chain, and that morning, when I left your house, leaving my backpack behind like the ancient Israelites who forgot to bake bread on their way out of Egypt, it was the knowledge that I would not have to see your eyes that propelled me to lock the door behind me.

Did you call me then? I remember crying in a glass lobby, and falling asleep on the train. Or was it the next night? The days all blend together. But like Moses promising Pharaoh that he will no longer see his face, I kept my promise to myself that I would not see those blue torture-chambers that dot the space beneath your eyebrows. No wonder you thought it funny when I spoke of S&M, or the drunken readings of the Marquis De Sade that took place in my apartment.

I always preffered the works of Leopold Von Saccer Massoch - his name has an elegant ring to it, and the last line of "Venus in Furs" is devoted to gender equality. I bet they never bothered to read it - those people who haunt the BDSM clubs of Southern Tel Aviv, who drink semen and leather the way I drink coffee.

If only quitting coffee were as easy as quitting you - maybe then I would not have head-aches on the Day of Atonement - only tears.

Noah

I remember the nights when you held me in the darkness. Now I lie alone, the straw smelling of sweat and semen. But I know that you have not lost it with me, this life-force, and then you complain of feeling depleted. Wash your hands, you pervert, and take a shower! Your skin smells of horse-shit, and you no longer let me run my fingers through you hair. Thunder peels down the sky, but I can not see the lightning, stuck here in the wooden box that floats. I turn over, praying the straw will smell better on your side of the mattress. It doesn't. I lay awake listening to the chatter of monkeys and the lonely cries of the nightingales, wishing you could hear my silence.

*********************************************************************************************

"Camels are so not sexy", you said to me, when I came to your house for the first time. All the other suitors had horses. But over time, our lives became steady like the camel, you and I, long and drawn, safe and not needing much water. I always feared the day you would long for the swiftness of camels, and when the flood came, I was releived - we were the only ones left now, you and I, in this wooden floating tomb.

But I have seen the way that your eyes turn down when I walk into our cabin, so I have chosen only to return once your eyes are closed. Are you lying there tonight, dreaming? Or are you thinking of the many men you could have chosen, and the freshness of their cold corpses? I rub my hand against the camels fur, feel the knobs of his humps, hard and comforting. My palm slowly crawls into the spot where you hands once dwelt, and when it is over, the white stain on the wood is small. I will clean it up tomorrow, with the camel droppings. I will drop both into the waters that have learned to drown our silence, and it is only the rustling of the straw between us that reminds me that you are real, that once your body proved to me the reality of my body. I have replaced your kisses with a bucket of camel droppings.

Couldn't it at least have been horse-shit? Camels are so not sexy.

Battle

"What do you write?" she asked.
The red of the wine was reflected in the garnets that dotted her pale wrist.
"I write porn", he said.
She laughed, her hips swaying slightly, and in her smile he felt the undulations of purple waters.
"What do you write?" he asked.
"I write about sex", she said.
He laughed. She found the sounds too staccato for her taste.
"What's the difference?" he said.
"You write about body parts. I write about how people use sex to cover the loneliness inside them", she replied, and he saw her, sitting naked, crying, on an old floral couch by an abandoned guitar, as moonlight poured in from a white terrace. He pitied her then. She saw the pity, and put down the wine glass slowly. He remembered the day his mother sat him down when he was 13. "Pity is so unsexy", she said, right before giving him a slap. (God, even today, he shuddered at the oedipal implications - "Damn Freud", he'd always say, because it made the girls giggle.)

"I'm sorry", he said, as she pulled her seat apart from the table.
She shrugged. "For what?" she said, "You didn't do anything wrong."

Her shoulders reminded him of the second part of his mother's lecture: "All girls are liars", she had said, stirring the hot chocolate.

But by now he had learned to mix different kinds of drinks.

"I like you", he said, putting his arm on her white arm.

She laughed. "Am I supposed to find that flattering?"

"Yes", he said, and the look in her eyes changed for a moment.

He was reminded of the unsharpening of knives. He did not know, that at thirteen, her mother had sat her down, too. "All boys are liars", she had said, stirring sugar into the hot coffee, "but in bed they can be conquered."

She had grown to doubt the wisdom of this tale - too many nights had ended in tears - but in the tipsy vision of a piano-ed evening full of black satin ties, the little girl sharpened her battle knives.

Jeremiah 9

If my arms were larger, you could sleep in their shade, or rest in the dell between my thighs.

"It's not good to be too available", she said, the cigarette hanging out between her clenched teeth, slowly distending over her bottom lip. "Jesus. When you smoke your entire mouth looks like a vagina", I said. She laughed, and the cigarette moved slightly down. "A monster vagina with one enormous clitoris.", I said. "Attack of the monster vagina!", she cried, trying to balance the cigarette in her mouth as she chased me around the couch.

Your tears smelled of desire.

I learned to wrap myself around the stem of your body like those strings used to tie bouquets of dying flowers, and grew sick of the raspberry taste of your kisses. "I would turn my lips into peaches if it would make you stay", you said. "I just don't love you", I said, waiting for your fingers to slowly unravel from mine. The words were not smooth; they hurt around the edges, and I knew you were waiting for me to cry.

But the fall has passed; rotten wheat chafes at my mountains, my petals grow dry, and I too, have learned to forget the desire that comes with the touch of thighs.

Holiday

"Blanche Dubois always depeneded on the kindness of strangers. Well I guess I have always depended on the kindness of friends", she said, laughing.

Her laughter scared him, in a way that the scars on her thigh did not. "Papa always said I laughed like the devil", she had told him on the first date, but he had found her charming then, the diamonds had glistened against her wrists that fit into the palms of his hands, and then she quoted Shakespeare when he touched her thighs, and he thought, "This is it" in that moment, but time has a habit of shattering like glass, and we are left with the dregs of memories, the sour taste of slightly stale wine slipping down our tongues, the tightening of the larynx as the alcohol sears through our throats - I could never drink wine. I told you that on the first day, but you did not beleive me, until I was curled up on your bathroom floor, and somehow we were both in your bathtub, and I was naked. My head was in your lap, and your hands were combing my hair.

''You always had gentle fingers", she said, "They almost reminded me of a violin, and when you played my back, I felt that we were making music."

He laughed. "God, that might be the corniest thing you have ever said to me."

She laughed to, but now it was different in tone - nervous.

Laughter turns grapes into wine, and wine into vinegar.

They were drunk on the dissapointment that comes with broken love; its shards are so enticing, its scent so pure. You breathe it in like incense, and worship at the Temple of Loneliness, where Preists of Anger burn flowers long into the night, and thighs forget the feel of lover's breaths.

Breathe my child, for when the morning touches her lips to night's chest, there will be no sigh.

Kisses of Silence

"You can not draw out emotions like water", he said, his hand resting gently on my thigh.

I shrugged, moving the ashtray onto my lap in anticipation of his cigarette. He laughed.

"It's a new skirt!" I said.

"What did it cost? Ten dollars?".

I blushed.

"You know me too well." I said.

He laughed.

"No, I'm serious - it will get boring."

"You could never get boring", he said.

His kiss was too wet.

I wanted to say, "Liar", but it hard to talk when someone's tongue is in your mouth.

I thought about our first night together, when he told me I was beautiful. I had wanted to call him a liar then too, but once again, his kisses silenced me.

When we broke up, I told him I didn't want to live a life silenced by his kisses.

"But I don't understand." he said,

"Well then, I suppose for once I've silenced you with my words", I replied, refusing to look back as I turned the corner.

Cold

It is cold out, and I am sitting here pondering loneliness. No, I am sitting here feeling lonely and tired and full of laffah and too tired to write and unable to go to sleep without writing. A song plays outside my window, and I think of a poet I met once, who spoke about writing poems with his hands "unlathed"; what a beautiful word - if only I were less lazy, maybe I could use it.

I have become my own prisoner, in this house I built for myself with my own two hands, and it is so fucking cold - how can anyone write when it's so cold? How did Hawthorne not just say, "Fuck it. It's freezing." How did he produce these masterworks like "Young Good Man Brown"? I mean, Thoreau at Walden - that I can accept - he was a nancy boy whose bills were paid by his aunt - and Franklin kept warm by fucking while wearing a coonskin cap. (No, that is not a weird metaphor for "condom". It was an actual fashion statement - google it.)

It is so cold on nights like this you don't even want to sleep with anyone -you just want to pull on as many sweaters as possible. I've been told that I wear too many sweaters; that it's too much for men to work through - but if I am not worth the work of shoving through mounds of wool, I am not sure you're worth the work either.

My computer is about to run out of batteries. I will go read a book, trying to concentrate, but won't succeed - and of course, the whole point of the laffah with labneh was to make me warm, because a friend told me sometimes eating makes people warm. I think she confused eating with sex - that's easy to do. I mean, look at Genesis: Eve eats and discovers she's naked, next thing you know she's with child. Think of all our eating sex metaphors, like "eating a woman out" and then the famous scene with Stanley giving Stella meat, and of course the rabbinics about Jews in the wilderness asking Moses, "Who will give us meat to eat?". Am I the only one who considers meat unsexy? I much prefer coffee and abandoned trees.

God, it is so cold. Just cold enough to make me long for one of your kisses, but not quite cold enough to make me want to change my mind.

Para meu amor. Bj.

I can trace your love through the scars on my body:

The place where your knife first touched my thigh: the caresses of metal, and silver kisses transformed me into your canvas, an abstract painting of red and purple splashing pale skin.

The night was long, when your teeth first scattered their marks over my neck; You guided my fingers along the grooves in my skin like as one guides the fingers of a blind man at the Western Wall.

I did not fear you then:

I was too intoxicated by the smell of my own blood, slightly salty, like the taste of your tears.

As vezes, eu choro quando eu penso de voce, mas nao tenho saudade - choro de raiva, porque o que que voce fazei na meu corpo, voce qui prometei de mi amar pra toda vida? Choro porque nao posso falar, porque voce bate minhas palavras, como voce bate minha alma - mas nao meu coracao, qui ja ta quebrado quando nacio, quando saiu de voce como uma paloma trista, que precisa tentar de voar sem asas.

Tonight (Insert Pitbull song here)

I hesitated before writing this post, and even now, as I type, am not sure I will post this, because I don't want to make this blog "personal" - while life experiences inspire my art, it tends not to be autobiographical.

Tonight however, I did want to share a few thoughts about religiosity, self-actualization, and romance: Gilad Shalit came home today. A friend of mine pointed out that this was a literal realization of the blessing, "Blessed are you, Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who frees prisoners." I agree with my friend, however, to make this blessing relevant to my own life on a daily basis, usually interpret it metaphorically: God helps us overcome our own boundaries and limitations, thus freeing us from ourselves.

I keep on thinking of the "overcoming our own barriers" them when combined with a lecture I heard that goes as follows: According to one rabbi, if one repents, their sins are neutralized. According to another, if one repents, they are not only neutralized, but even become positive assets. The resolution of the two opinions is as follows: Depending on how you repent, you can turn mistakes in the past into positive learning experiences that make you a better person, or you can simply neutralize them and try to erase your past.

I've long been a proponent of the second type of "repentance" when it comes to romance: I don't believe in letting one relationship affect another, not just in the sense you shouldn't bring baggage from one relationship into another, but also in the sense that one just shouldn't compare, because its unhealthy. Who cares anyhow - you're with this person now, and they are what matters, not the past.

That being said, I don't believe in "erasing" past experiences, in an "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" type of way - I think without our experiences, we wouldn't be who we are - and once had a very awkward conversation about erasing memories of exes and the film "ESOSM" with an ex. Veeery awkward.

But tonight I wondered if the second type of "repentance" - the type that makes you a better person/romantic partner as a result of mistakes in the past - is not optimal, as opposed to the "nuetral" model I had set for myself (which is not to say I am starting to believe in comparing - I am still a strong opponent of that). Because tonight, for a minute, I felt that type of romantic "repentance" and it felt good, and for that I must thank God.

By the way, the reason I am sharing this is that this "moment" resulted in my previous post - a rant of insomniatic freedom.

Insomnia

To be free of you is to sit here, alone, and to not long for the warmth of your body, or the feel of your thighs. To be free of you is to know that I have chosen to lie here, wrapped in a red shawl, feeling the air breathe up my legs, not to be asleep, with you, in bed - because you always knew how to cure my insomnia.

To be free of you means to know I can handle grief like a crystal vase - clear and shatter-able - without needing to spill words onto you like honey.

You told me you dreamt you were superman, but in your dream, you could not save me. I never asked you to.

You could not save me because I could not break myself into tiny enough pieces for you to sweep, and because you were afraid of the pain.

Or maybe I was afraid. It doesn't matter.

I don't miss you tonight. I miss my pink sheets, and the smell of a man's sweat on my pillows - but I don't miss you. I don't even miss your body.

When you told me you wanted us to be alone, in Central Park, that day, I thought to myself, "Oh. So he wants to fuck me". I took your hand and told you it would be ok. I am sorry, because that was the only time I lied to you, I think.

At least I did not lie to you with my body: I took you into my bed when I wanted, as I wanted. I did not use words like "love" - words that rolled so easily off your tongue.

"Do you love me, or are you just addicted to my body?" I asked. I was not angry; merely curious. You told me you saw no difference, but I did: Love is not sex, despite what they teach you in kindergarten - and you, for some odd reason, had sex ed in kindergarten.

But I have never grown addicted to a man's kisses - or a woman's either, for that matter. Like a conoisseur sipping fine wine, I know when the bottle has reached its dregs.

My one regret is that you were not as delicious as I had hoped; your lips were not as sweet, your hands ungentle.

Does it make me evil, to dissect the interaction of our bodies like a scientist deconstructing an experiment gone wrong, as if you were a cell of bacteria?

But I think I wanted you then. Maybe I even loved you, in moments when I was afraid.

Maybe - because who can tell, at the point where sex meets desire, where hormones meet soul?

I guess it's time to open a new bottle.

Jeremiah 8

Flowers are ephemeral.

A scholar told this to a little prince, on a planet that will remain unmarked by the astronomer's lens, as your hands will remain unmarked by my thighs.

You wilted before I could smell the incense of your breasts, or feel the softness of your petals, before I could kiss your lips that always seemed shaped like bell-flowers - dainty and unafraid.

It was I who feared the breaths that came between us, like a shadow, until there was only sunlight, and the stillness of your body.

I have forgotten how to mourn - they tried to teach me once, in kindergarten. They told me I was meant to cry, but my eyes have grown drier than the deserts in which we planned hikes we will never take.

My mother tells me that I need "closure", but how does one close something that was never opened; the bud did not become a flower, and slowly you morphed into corny metaphors.

Have I morphed into a man?

Have I grown thorns?

Jeremiah Chapter 7

The house is quiet now. Once we fled through her corridors, our hands clinging together like vines that have grown to fear the sun. Their grapes wither like the flesh of old women, who sit by the city gates and hark their thighs, remembering the days when men cried for their flesh the way the High Priest cries on the day of atonement, his fingers gently caressing the white lamb. Only the beggars take them, old men whose lice-filled heads have grown accustomed to making pillows out of the brown rocks that line the city streets.

But we will be different, you and I. When our fingers have forgotten each other's touch, we will lie peacefully in the mountains, feeling the prickle of dried grass on our backs, letting the pine-scented air caress our faces, until she too, fades into a loveless bed.

Jeremiah Chapter 6

The cumin rests gently on her thighs; its specks are like freckles.

I smell the cinnamon on her neck, the oregano in between her breasts,

I trace the basil that she rubbed on her belly with my fingers,

and kiss the coriander that spots her back like leaves' shadows.

The night will announce itself in creases of white linen that mark our arms like time;

when the sheet has folded itself into a carpet beneath us, we will know that the sun

has started to climb above the mountains, as we once climbed together, you and I -

before the swords had sown thickets of brown thorns into the earth that was once a green blanket beneath us.

When the sun breathes into us tomorrow, will you be afraid to cry?

Take 2

I decided to edit my Jeremiah Chapter 2 exercise - mostly by cutting lines. I probably will still tinker around with it more - I'd like to turn it into something more formal.

You stagger in like a whore, feet shuffled bare, heels held in your hand,

white slip slipping off your shoulder.

You trod on wisteria leaves on your way to the kitchen;

your hair has grown wild like the lotus-plants and pomegranate trees

that have taken over the garden.

Once, I called you the red-haired whore of the vineyard; I insulted the mothers of the men

who dared to dance in between your thighs.

Tonight, I watch you in silence,

knowing the day will come when you will pine,

not for my body, but for the sound of my voice

gently berating your cunt that slithers like a snake between the legs of men,

for the words I hurl at you like knives - for the wounds,

fresher than pineapples that farmers bring to morning markets,

redder than the pomegranate seeds that I crush between my fingers,

watching their juice bleed down my palms, like your blood once bled

down my thighs.