Eventually I run out of bullshit to say and tell her, you‘re beautiful. Arris gives me one of her soft looks and says, ‘I know.’ Her words stick in my heart as the most wonderful of splinters, I collect them now and forge little tableaux with the material. When they are ready I unveil them to her like proud popsicle constructions of architectural marvels. ‘This is good,’ she always says, and gives me tips toward their betterment. You’re not merely beautiful but right, I tell her. ‘So are you,’ she says, unloading a fresh batch of structural substance.
Split again by distance but tethered differently now. We walk a spiral together, passing similar landmarks at different latitudes. Each new angle viewed comes with a small exclamation avowing everything wondrous. I wish I could reel in the rope that binds us, though tracing its knots is more comfort than I could hope and its weft is weighted perfectly. I think of that inexpressible smile, a thousand types of countenance in kaleidoscopic incarnation, who’s light does it shine on tonight. I think of all I love and fasten it around myself, mooring my spirit to vast and unpredictable happiness.
We lay in bed holding hands like main stream otters and drift into sleep. We meet then in dreams where the visage can be hazy but the intents are clear and carry an undercurrent of the day’s rumination. At times our faces are other, garish masquerade or marvellous gall, but only for the objective of the interim. This then is important for the process of understanding purpose, of distilling the chameleonic collation that coalesces in headspace. Who are our minds at rest. In the morning we wake, in arms or at odds but always together, and pool our experiences.
She took the longest rope she could find and thrust herself headlong into the morass of my mind. Deep into mine eye she dived, calling echos that reverberate still inside. What might she find but she had time? Deep into my core she burrowed, cracked through crusts and subsurface furrows, foraging for diamonds developed under pressure, rent from my soul and brought to light. She went all the way to the bottom of my life, climbed out clean, proud, and satisfied that she alone had ventured there. ‘It is beautiful,’ she said, displaying the very nature of my being.
Lost as usual, or found again, in lionised eyes. Time passes. Thirteen point eight billion years theorised, over a dozen epochs subdivided across eras then in turn divided by ages. Pupils dilate. Four hundred milliseconds to blink. Barely the length of a Planck between us when one arcsecond ticks a parsec. Lips part. Seventeen muscles to smile, they say, and seventy two beats for one to pump blood, unless it’s in love. Vows are exchanged. Nine billion, one hundred ninety-two million, six hundred thirty-one thousand, seven hundred seventy transitions cross a caesium atom. An eternity is spent.
We sat by the lakeshore singing our praises, a harmony backed by the gentle lapping of wind moved water and ingrained natures. We decided then that truth was indeed subjective, and having been subjected to lies in our lives, promised that love would be our new reality. This is something we are allowed to feel, we said, though it sat unspoken as the truest entitlement. Later we would hold hands and split silences, staring at one another’s shifting irises, and laugh at how easy it had become to be honest with ourselves. I love you, we said, in truth.
Jennifer took every part of the man she loved and put it in a blender. She poured the contents into a milkshake glass and drank. It was sweet at first and thrilling, possibly wicked, but after several sips she grew to hate the taste. So, she placed it on the counter and left. Several women passed in this manner, drank and discarded the drink, excitement turning to disgust and the glass always empty. Arris, upon seeing the receptacle, remarked upon its craftsmanship. ‘Exquisite,’ she said, ‘and practical,’ then took it home with her where it was filled every day.
I put on my pyjama pants, only my brain doesn’t call them that, it calls them yours. It’s a funny little moment, just one in a dozen daily instances that remind me how quickly we’ve commingled our minds. I no longer possess any decent nouns, nor impropriety, only tactile verbs. Smell, touch, taste, sleep, kiss, fuck, eat, cry, laugh, burrow, embed. I lay myself down and think of us. Of our bed. Of us in it. Of its vastness when empty. Of its occupied warmth. Hug, talk, sing, sigh, whimper, pant, proclaim. Love. I fall asleep in your arms.
Arris looked at the walls around us and said, ‘I bet we could knock one down if we wanted.’ Of course, I said, if it’s sound. She strode to each surface, knocked and listened in turn. ‘Well, they all sound amenable to me.’ Her laughter fell out and furnished the room around me, her dreams and intentions colouring everything. ‘We’ll start from the middle and work our way out,’ she said. ‘Making and shaping space as we need it.’ Knock down whatever you want, I told her, I will build the pillars to keep the roof over our heads.
Piece by piece I removed my soul and arranged it in the shape of a man in front of her. It’s fragile, I said, and worn. Please take care of it. ‘Forever,’ she said, ‘but first things first, lets put you back together.’ She set to rearrange the pieces then and place them back inside, making me whole again in new and unexpected ways. It is perfect now, I said, but she just shook her head. ‘It was always perfect, love, you just needed to see it for yourself.’ I embraced her then, finally comfortable to be simply myself.
I read omens in everything now, so desperate am I to cling to her love. What portents might the weather tell? What aching in my bones belies our fates? I find myself steering clear of minor obstacles, around a ladder or opting out of mirrors, and lately, wondering when might a black cat cross me. I was never superstitious, now I am become unilaterally suspicious. Life, you see, has been recently quite good to me. While not uncommon in circumstance, my own awareness of such happenstance is frightening, a little enlightening, and idiosyncratically contrived. I’ll take mine with salt.
I gather my wares as might a mynah. A few scraps of song, some things not necessarily like sonnets but substantially poetic, perchance some art pieces, various vows, of course, and affirmations made of strong yet supple cords, spider silk possibly. I bind it all together with countless fine devotions and shape a nest around us. I coo, heedful of pride, as you percuss the air with a pleasured display of span. We preen each other of free of woes, flock together, and roost until sunrise, when I fly, as might a mynah, knowing my mate ever awaits me.
I giggle all the time now thinking about the things that make her laugh. Silly voices and swift caricatures tread the boards of my brain, running ragged the props department of my imagination. Such worth in her mirth though, and my own, in trying characters and satirical takes on self, in loving laughter and putting energy into entertaining what you enjoy. We do our routines together in the round, oblivious of any audience but ourselves, grateful for the glancing approval of strangers but always and only perfecting our performance for each other. All the world’s stage built for us.
She screams, ‘Why are we fighting?’ So I make my voice cold in the way I was taught as a child, deep and sharpened for stagecraft. It’s because everything’s too good, I tell her, we don’t trust joy to come so easy or stay solid for long. Hard eyes and a soft tongue, she says, ‘Testing for imperfections.’ Like a peach. ‘Rotten inside?’ Delicious all over. It takes thirty seconds of staring before we’re holding each other in hysterics, the promise of tears swallowed with pride. ‘Are we being silly?’ Only about arguments, I say, the rest is serious.
We fuck so hard the fittings crack and the knick knacks clatter from the mantle. Afterwards, we lay in sticky splendour and quiver in each other’s arms. I love love, you say. I too, my love, adore ardour. We lock fingers and describe each other in fine detail. You, I say, are the corona that makes sunlight special. And you, dear one, are the defiant moon in daylight. The tides shift when we kiss, something tectonic quakes, and the world is rearranged. The stars align and this time we make love. Did you feel that, we say. My love.
A Few Short Words 