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[esthxlie-blog]

Seven Deadly Sins

My eyes are closed and I am breathing deeply. I feel his hand brush my hair behind my ear, and then pull back with considerable hesitancy. My breathing stops. It’s the first time he’s touched me since that cold January night. I am paralyzed and he can tell. “I shouldn’t...” he trails off. I shake my head, my lungs tighten, “but I need you.” This morning when I woke, I had finally found acceptance. This wasn’t the story I wanted, but it was the narrative I had been granted, and I had finally found contentment in that. I knew he was around, I knew he was stopping by. I knew my feelings had not subsided, but I had practiced this kind of self-control before and I was ready for whatever heartbreak the universe wanted to throw my way. But where I expected bitterness, there was sweetness. Where I expected regret, there was satisfaction. The day was filled with laughter and joy, things I had not felt since that cold January night. We tip-toes around the obvious: that it shouldn’t have been this easy. That we had both just put ourselves in a bad situation. Going into this, hoping for awkwardness and tension, just to make it all easier. Just to solidify the decision we made on that cold January night. But here we are, breath halted, our bodies pulling themselves to one another. I exhale and I feel my body release. I feel him lean towards me. My eyes are still shut, but I would recognize the heat of him at any distance. “It’s a bad idea...” he says inching closer. I nod my head. I feel his hand on mine, just barely. His thumb traces my knuckles for a few, painfully long minutes. He moves to the side of my hand, tracing its curve back and forth. My heart is skipping many beats, and I realize just how deadly this is going to be. I also realize that I do not care. His thumb travels to my wrist, and I open my hand for him. He gently strokes my palm, and I can feel his searing touch even after he pulls away. I grab at his hand, giving him permission, begging him to continue. I can feel his hesitancy has not faded. He realizes what he is doing, what he has done, and where this is going. “It’s not fair to you.” “I know,” I whisper. “I do not care.” He bends down and rests his head on mine. His hands brush my hair over my shoulders, and he pulls back. He grabs his head and walks away in frustration. “I made so many mistakes. I can’t forgive myself for what I’ve done. All you ever did was love me.” I open my eyes. He is standing by the door and I wonder if he’ll leave again. For a moment I realize that I wouldn’t be surprised. But he steps towards me. I remember that my mother always told me that people never change, but this step is some damn hard evidence against that. He holds his head and looks at me. “I don’t know what I’m doing without you.” I don’t smile. I even know if I can at this point. There is pain that I feel so deep in my stomach, and I can’t tell whether it is from the memory of his treachery, or from the certainty in which I am about to absolve his guilt. He walks back over to me, and with every step he takes I remember a reason that I love him. Step one. The kindness that he gives so freely. Even to those who don’t deserve it. Even to those who have hurt him and made him think less of himself. Even to those with blonde hair and blue eyes, who kind of sort of look like me, but who are most definitely not me, and who take it all the wrong way, exactly like me.  Step two. The passion that laces everything he does and everything he says. From playing until early morning at the billiards bar to memorizing all of the words to that dumb song that won’t stop playing on the radio. From the “I love you” he moans between the sheets to the “I don’t really even need you” he yells during the daily squabble. Some might mistake this passion for anger, but I know him much better than that. It is a passion that he cannot put into words because he cannot understand it because he does not even try. He does not know how this passion will consume and when he starts to realize, he will run from it. Step three. The way that he carelessly lives. How he carelessly loves and carelessly screams and carelessly speeds past every lane of bumper to bumper traffic. He carelessly smokes two packs a day. He carelessly doesn’t let anything get in his way. He’s a go getter and he went and got her. How he carelessly brushes everything under the rug and carelessly says, “I’m sorry, you know it won’t happen again.” It’s only now that I realize that carelessly is no way to care.  Step four. The way his eyes give everything away. Every mistake he’s ever made, every regret he’s ever had, every single thing he’s ever absolutely fallen in love with, and I am no doubt one of them. I watch them and I learn from them. Their different inflections when he says my name tell me all. How they widen when he smiles and shrink when he’s frustrated. They have never left me wondering, not even when they screamed RUN. I heard them loud and clear. Step five. His shaky hands that can and will unravel you like a well-worn sweater. How they travel all over me and explore my body. They warm me and they comfort me. He can’t help but speak with them. I can’t help but remember how he sat on them when he told me it was fine. Everything was fine and I knew it was a lie. Step six. Him. All of him. The best and the worst. Him.  We are now parallel in every manner. Our bodies aren’t touching, our lists of sorries running on for miles, always eventually coming back to us. But it doesn’t have to be this way. This time it is me that is the first to touch. I slowly move my hand towards his and our pinkies link. I can hear his heart thudding against his bones, caged in by twenty-four ribs and twenty-four reasons that this is an idea straight from hell. Our foreheads lie against each other, his eyes look into mine. I can feel him shaking. He knows this is wrong, but he just can’t help himself. This is something he’s told me many time before. I do not know if it comforts me that I am no exception. I am by no means the only exception. I shake my head and let it go, remembering that he is here and he is hurting too, but that he is still here.  He kisses my forehead and then folds into me, wrapping his arms gently around me. His breath hot on my neck, turning my body to flames. I realize now I will burn, the only evidence left will be that of destruction and suffering. I concede anyway. My hands travel up his back and claw at his shoulders. I feel him shiver, and he whispers in my ear, “I missed you.” Everything seems to be moving in slow motion, although I’m sure it’s because we used to move so fast. He takes his time kissing my neck, slowly, making sure he remembers the taste of every last inch of my skin. He runs his hands up and down my side, over my waist, against my chest. He pulls back and lets out a balmy breath that travels down my front. His grip has tightened, his desire has amplified. His eyes meet mine. “I am so sorry,” he says. His lips get closer to mine, but he doesn’t assume he has the right anymore. He breathes in and I breathe out, exchanging oxygen for what seems like forever. What is between us cannot be described. His hand is on my waist and I can feel his unsteadiness. I place my hand over his and it stops. We both pause, remembering how comforting this love is, and for a moment we reminisce.  “You know that I love you,” I say. My stomach flips and my heart squirms. I know I shouldn’t have said it, likely for the benefit of us both, but what’s been done has been done. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t even know if he can at this point. I feel a tear slip off of his cheek, brushing past mine as it falls to the floor. I reach up and wipe it’s remains away and as I pull back, he grabs my wrist and places it back on his cheek. “Please, just for a minute,” he says. I steady my hands and brush my thumb against his cheek. More tears fall but they are silent and his face is lackluster. I can feel every ounce of tenderness that I have ever felt for this boy rise to the surface. A lump forms in my throat, and I try to swallow it away, but it remains. “I am terrified,” he manages to say. “I know. I am too.” I realize now that tears are making their way down my face. We are still just three inches apart, just two inches apart, just one, and now none. It starts gentle and calm. When our lips meet I am sure that I undeniably belong to him. He tastes like Coca Cola and familiarity. I lean into him and he catches me, steady as ever. He is spinning and I am dizzy, this is wrong but it feels so right. I fall into his gravity. Our hands are everywhere and his body is against mine. I can feel the hesitancy fade, and even though we still realize how bad this is, there is nothing stopping us anymore. His tongue is deep in my mouth, tracing my teeth, and I surrender all of myself. 

There are seven deadly sins, and I think I’m committing every last one of them.

[esthxlie-blog]

Loving the Boy on Fire

The air is ice. He is fire. I’m still in this bed, unsure if I should be burning or freezing. I’m sure he can tell that I’m at odds with myself, but for what exactly, he does not know. He reaches his arms around my midsection, pulls me closer, and lets out a balmy breath that travels down my neck. His hands make their way under my shirt, and I gladly let them, because all of my life I’ve been destitute of physical attention. I will take all that I can get, no matter how searing it may be. We settle, our breathing starts to orchestrate, but it doesn’t feel as beautiful as harmonies should sound. I can hear my heart beating, but it doesn’t match the thump of his. I spend a long while, eyes closed, manipulating my insufflation trying to get our hearts to beat the same. They never do. He places his hand in the small of my back and kisses the nape of my neck, leaving it to sizzle out. He pulls back and stands up, uncovering my body, letting the arctic air engulf my anatomy. Sharp respiration, tight lungs, I feel like I am paralyzed. I wrap myself in his comforter, shivering. He raises his voice, telling me that we’ll be late and that I need to get up. I can feel his warmth from here, as if he is incandescent. It pulls me from the bed towards him, as if we are laying a childish game of ‘hot and cold.’ I grab at his arm for sweet relief from this winter, but he pulls away. “We don’t have time.” I follow him to the car. We’re driving and he’s hollering. At every car, every light, every single lane that ends. This is nothing new and I gladly listen as the car quickly warms. After a while I start to swelter, as if I’m dehydrating. He can tell I’m choked up, afraid of something, heat exhaustion, or maybe just exhaustion itself.He places his hand on my thigh. I lean towards him and continue to burn. By the time the key pulls out of the ignition, everything is flame and smoke. I open the door and it hits me all over again. I can feel myself getting whiplash from all of this back and forth. I guess that’s what you get for loving the boy on fire. The universe is desperate to cool you down.

Cool it may try, but cool has never truly existed. It is only the absence of heat. Only the absence of him.