Tuesday, June 13, 2006

21. when we can- confess

Dear T,

You call during a five-minute break because you say you wanted to and I smile for an hour after. You flash your electric blue eyes when excited. You pick up a couple of strands of hair casually from my head and hold it between your fingers distractedly when talking in bed now and then, and it is the one thing somehow I cannot accept at all. It is the one thing I really wish you wouldn't do, or if you must do, I really wish you wouldn't ever stop. You have the most fluid intelligence I have encountered in any person. You are smarter than me, and as vain as it sounds, this is not a judgment I make often, nor make lightly. I am envious of you because of this. I do not like that you are so eloquent and discerning, so analytical and insightful. I watch your mind ticking around facts, numbers, riddles, experiences, organizing them, drawing from them, making perceptions, pondering on how you could improve on them. I have read your writing, that first piece of erotic writing you sent me befrer we ever had had sex. It was before I had read much erotic writing at all, but it is now still one of the sexiest pieces of writing I’ve ever encountered, and that is saying a lot. I think of how I had instantly known after reading it, my body already aching, that if you had walked in to my room right then, I would have fucked you. Sex was always inevitable from then on with you. If that was the purpose of sending it to me, it certainly served its purpose well. (I guess I have tried to use my own writing the same way.) I have listened to your music, listened to you talk, looked at your life, visited your house, seen who you’ve touched. I have felt your fuck. Some of these are on the surface, and some of these are not. I have seen how you are careful to care, how you struggle to do the right thing, how your enthusiasm is contagious, how you laugh like an impudent boy, how you say what can’t be said, how you are a teacher at heart and how I have a weakness for that, for the ones who have to share things learnt. For the ones who believe you will get it too, the ones who know how to trick you into getting it when they have to, with their charisma, with their patience, with their hope, with their pride, with their humble wonder. All of these are in you. You know this power, carry its responsibility around your neck like a collar. When you are in pain like you are now, I have sudden, surprising thoughts of holding your head to my heart, kissing your every finger if it would help, even if it wouldn’t, just so I have something to do. When you are mistaken, I am sadly shaken. When you are troubled, I am troubled, but I admit more than just for you, I feel vaguely unhinged, like a child with misplaced faith. I’m rooting for you though, in the end, for what it’s worth, hoping this will pass, hoping that you find whatever it is you want because you deserve it. I don’t know, all I know is I have a tender pride for you, though I have had no hand in you, that you be happy is what makes the world happy, and the world happy is what I like to see.

If it were pathetic confessions that we were doing, these are what I would tell you.

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