Numbness

She listened to the music, then numbed herself with some chocolate, before she could cry - or write.

To write requires some sort of emotion, but those were too much too handle now. Chocolate, on the other hand, was easy - it was soft in her hands, easy to chew - and - what exactly?

She watched her figure grow larger, felt the little puffinness in her arms and beneath the circles of tiredness that lined her eyes, but the thought of exploring herself was worse than all the bad reflections, so she continued to degrade with decadance.

But what use was the decadance if she could not write a poem about the soft brown, the sticky sweetness that stuck to her fingers?

As useful as a lollipop, she said, and felt proud of herself for making up the term, even though she had no one to share it with - just a bit of sadness and some coffee.

Mishle 16 - Draft 3

"It is from God that words come", she said, and he called them gifts of the tongue. His hands were turning the knobs of her breasts, his lips licking the little bumps below her nipples, which had always been too orange for her taste - so she made him kiss her in the dark.

And sometimes she thought that she got it, because what were humans if not little creatures tossing around in the night, feeling around for the God's presence like she felt for his flesh, trying to distinguish meaning from nonsense like her fingers diffrenciating between skin and sheets.

He annointed her over his bed, with the sweat of his forehead. She licked the insides of his thighs, and kissed the covenant that lay between them, sealed in a white mark upon her hair.

"But emotions come from man", she said, and she thought, "And sometimes from woman".

But by then, he was too busy to hear her,  his thighs wrapped around her thighs, his chest hairs brushing up against her breasts, and amid the breaths of prayers, she could feel her hair unwinding, with no words to capture the slight shattering - only a kiss that tasted of wine and cinammon.

Mishle 16 - 2nd Draft

"It is from God that words come", she said, and he called them gifts of the tongue. His hands were turning the knobs of her breasts, his lips licking the little bumps below her nipples, which had always been too orange for her taste - so she made him kiss her in the dark.

And sometimes she thought that she got it, because what were humans if not little creatures tossing around in the night, feeling around for the God's presence like she felt for his flesh, trying to distinguish meaning from nonsense like her fingers diffrenciating between skin and sheets.

He annointed her over his bed, with the sweat of his forehead. She licked the insides of his thighs, and kissed the covenant that lay between them, sealed in a white mark upon her hair.

"But emotions come from man", she said, and she thought, "And sometimes from woman".

But by then, he was too busy to hear her,  his thighs wrapped around her thighs, his chest hairs brushing up against her breasts, and amid the breaths of prayers, she could feel her hair unwinding, their covenant falling apart, with no words to capture the slight shatterings - only a kiss that tasted of wine and cinammon.

Mishle 16

"It is from God that words come", she said, and he called them gifts of the tongue. His hands were turning the knobs of her breasts, his lips licking the little bumps below her nipples, which had always been too orange for her taste - so she made him kiss her in the dark.

And sometimes she thought that she got it, because what were humans if not little creatures tossing around in the night, feeling around for the God's presence like she felt for his flesh, trying to distinguish meaning from nonsense like her fingers diffrenciating between skin and sheets.

He annointed her over his bed, with the sweat of his forehead. She licked the insides of his thighs, and kissed the covenant that lay between them, sealed in a white mark upon her hair.

"But emotions come from man", she said, and she thought, "And sometimes from woman".

But by then, he was too busy to hear her,  his thighs wrapped around her thighs, his chest hairs brushing up against her breasts, and amid the breaths of prayers, she could feel her hair unwinding, their covenant falling apart, with no words to capture the slight shatterings, no broom to sweep up the shards of glass - only a kiss that tasted of wine and cinammon, a slight itch on her left nipple, and a bit of white that would come out in the shower.

Fucking

""Don't push it", she said, as if I could do anything but, with you running around in my head. Kisses became evidence that you meant to leave me, and I would have preferred slaps, to the uncertainty of nights between your thighs, if I weren't so addicted to your fucking body."

She paused."That is the worst fucking writing I've ever seen - and I've read Daniel Steele".
"Daniel who?"
"Steele. She writes harlequin romance novels."
"Ok."
"You know the type that I'd like to read, if I weren't so busy trying to harlequinize my reality."
"Is that a word?"
"Shakespeare created neologisms - why can't I?"

Their conversation dangled (yes, like the Simon and Garfunkel song), as they sat on the couch, his laptop lying between them - and as she read her novel, he reread his words, and found them lacking; her kisses no longer seemed real, and he began to doubt that she loved him.

What kind of a girlfriend doesn't like your writing, anyway? Not one he needed - but he was so addicted to fucking her body.

Free Writing

They say that Israel waxes and wanes like the moon;
the bright orb leans against the blue sky;
I am enveloped by your black clouds,
mists winding and unwinding from my thighs,
two thick sticks that once held light inside me,
but now it is only when I feel you release,
that the emptiness decreases slightly,
a silver sliver worming its way through the hollow,
in a way that a burrower might forge an unkosher sukkah, or a hobbit hole:

If Israel is a menstruant woman, will God not nibble the crevice of her neck,
or bite her thighs?
Will His lips not touch her breasts?

But the purity must be preserved:
Let us hang a white sheet between us,
lest I stain you scarlet, as I stained your couch,
that time I was a week early -
and let us not touch each other,
lest my moon stop shining.

I could not love you because my lips could not speak,
there could be no becoming, the small act of creation
formed with each letter, like a kiss -
and what world have we created between us,
this little couch, and those tiny burgers,
 and silences to light our journey,
which once was lit by the moon of our stomachs,
waxing and waning into each other,
hushed "I loves you"s breathed into the dark,
the breath of being, and I nurtured your seed inside me,
and then resorted to cliches,
when the love could bear me no longer.

Planes' Plie

"I have become weaker than the wind", you said, "spinning in each direction like a ballerina with a broken leg", and in between the loathing for your mixed metaphors, I thought of a plane, of the wind pushing and pulling to bear you away from me, like the slow withdrawing of our thighs beneath mud-colored sheets.

I was menstruating, and resentful of a world that told me the blood between my thighs didn't mean anything, and somehow this was liberation. Men never had to be liberated - even though, according to Rousseau, they were everywhere in chains: "It's different when you're enslaved to yourself, because, in addition to being the slave, you're also the master",  I said, on our first date, but you just laughed and poured me more wine. I got so drunk, I nearly vomited while giving you a blowjob, but you were still able to come in my mouth, and when I left in the morning, I knew that you'd call me.

It was on the fourth date that I brought you flowers - I thought I was so cool for shifting the gender paradigm. You spent an hour looking for a vase; by the time you found one, the petals had wilted slightly, and I had peed four times.

 

 I like peeing; I like the feeling of letting go. So why is it so hard to release you, crystal by crystal, before your yellow rots in my mouth like a bunch of dandelions? I used to pick them during summer afternoons, and weave them into my hair, a walking stereotype waiting for the dramatic music, accompanied by deep-voiced male narration: The young lady tries not to cry as she reads Susan Sontag's ode to urination, and imagines airplanes dancing in the wind like disfigured ballerinas.