Blood, Sex, Crimson

This is the story I didn’t write.

About a girl I barely knew.

I wouldn’t call her timid or skittish,

(I’m not that cruel)

or ephemeral

(I’m not that kind).

But I would call her interesting.

I would even call her beautiful.

If I were writing a story, I’d tell you that she didn’t like to kiss men with beards.

(but she kissed me)

I’d tell you she didn’t believe most men knew how to please a woman.

(but she was pleased)

This isn’t a story, so it doesn’t have an ending.

(but this is the end)

(or the start, I’m not sure)

It’s the winter. It’s the winter that tells me you are at my door.

I knew it this morning when I left, pulling firmly on the front door handle as I twisted the key. The door is stubborn and tricky; it won’t lock without a bit of force. It is worse, in the cold.

And it was cold outside, cold in the way that winter’s should be cold, where to stop moving is to stop entirely.

But you never stop, not for the winter, not for me.

I call you insidious. You inhabit me without intention, grace by accident, and I find you at the periphery.

When I turn from the door, you are there, almost.

And then you spin away.

Frail, your wrists; not quite delicate, I can count the bones encircled by my fingers.

I favored you, like I favored so many other delightfully deceitful things.

You were tangible, tangled, taught and taunt. I slept with you not as lovers but as a cohabitant of a singular thought, an indistinct promise exchanged in the sweet fumbling and then insistent and purposeful positioning that almost woke us, almost broke the unspoken and entirely imaginary line that kept us on just this side of decency.

“Reside,” I said, “And I will reside with you.”

I left those words, just long enough to make my words true and honest, before discarding them, “Reside,” I amended, “And I will cut away the rest of the world, snipping continents with a steady hand until all that is left is the island of you.”

I don’t want it to pass; I want to wrap you up in it, a cord of need that thrums when touched. I should be able to see it in your eyes, an iris of desire; taste it on your skin.

Because upfront or behind, a hand around the throat or buried in hair is better than any leash.

I can be cruel, if you see cruelty in being kept at a precipice without knowing just far you have to fall. I can be cruel, if you see cruelty in crawling to me, eyes raised to meet my own, until you are close enough to kiss my palms.

I can be cruel.

But never without purpose.

(Scarlet Letters has been updated.)

I crave the sound of whimpering, of sharp gasps and well-used flesh.

I want to leave welts. Bruised wrists. Rope burns.

The civility, so carefully crafted, is paper thin. I can see the puncture marks where teeth have already tasted the warm air just on the other side.

I want you bent over my desk, hands bound behind you, and fucked hard enough that your feet have to scrabble for purchase as I take you.

My writing is half-formed, which makes excellent poetry but terrible sentiment.

Take the following:

“I want more words, stitched bright white, the interrupted thought on blue midnight.”

Elegance where I want unbalanced devotion.

I’ve taken to reading books of poetry, sitting in my large leather chair, the tiny lamp on the bookcase next to me snapped on by pressing in on a small black line. I take them in one or two at a time, re-reading them until I think I can be honest enough about them to say they’ve been read. I should be comforted by their trust, settled by their placement.

Instead, I am provoked.

I find myself answering them in missives. Scratched, typed, or scrawled, I write promissory notes of future intent.

Fuck foreshadowing, fuck Babe Ruth and his called shots, fuck the lies I tell myself about tomorrow’s hungers.

I want it now.

Today, you are a fish.

A sleek, silver-purple dart of light.

In cupped hands, a fragile bowl of dipped water, you are caught.

I make you tomorrow’s mistake.