Plummy

I superglued my fingers together today. Rather badly. I think I wasn't really paying attention to the glue. It's hard to pay attention to much when he is in the same room. He smells like buttered honey. And his eyelashes. The little curled hairs on his jawline and his melted kiss eyes. So my fingers are glued together, and I'm crashing back into reality that they are not coming apart even under the faucet, and he is on his feet, going through the medicine cabinet looking for acetone, pouring it into a dish and reprimanding me when I try to use it gingerly so I don't muss my nailpolish. 

I dropped a glass a few years ago, and he was on his feet, not to clean the mess but to lift me bodily out and away from the shards.

He wakes up and the first thing he does, every single time, is start stroking me. For an hour, or till one of us falls asleep or gets up.

I've woken and found him on the sofa, sitting quietly in the dark, because he didn't want to wake me by tossing in bed.

We haven't seen each other in a while, and he shows up, looking down at me, and we both start grinning like goofballs. Just staring and smiling at each other. There is a look he gets on his face that grabs my cheeks and pushes them up, up, up.

I don't even know what we do for ten hours. Nothing, usually. I talk as fast as I can because I have so much to say, except I forget a lot of it when he is in the same room with me so sometimes I'm not saying anything but I am kicking myself for just staring and smiling when I will think of all the things I want to say when he leaves.

I sleep terribly when he's here. I sleep sporadically, jumping awake to make sure he's still here, reaching out for him and crawling over to smell him. I get weirdly hungry and think of ten thousand things I should cook for him and go sifting through the cupboards pulling out jars and pans.

I sleep crazy good when he's here. His skin is always always warm, tryptophan cozy, smooth under my hands like velvet coverlets that press down on your eyes. I swim up to the surface just barely, but everything is warm and easy and falling down again is nice.

We talk about traffic patterns and gender norms and politics and protests. We watch tv shows that came up in one of my stories, or one of his. He sewed his buttons on while I fixed my hooks and eyes. I try on dresses for him. He loses his glasses. 

When he leaves I am dazed, slow, happy and dumb. It's hard to do anything productive. I smile a lot and try to figure out what just happened. Where the hell did all that time go? What did I do all day? Why do I feel so fuzzy? His face. His breath. Why are his hands always warm and perfect? Maybe it is actually possible to tie myself in a knot around him. But I really like getting messages from him. And I can't think when he's close. Only when he pulls away a little, and I think, "Your face. Your face. I want to look at your face all day. I want to go away and think about looking at your face. I want to smile thinking about thinking about your face."

His face, and his words, when he doesn't think I'm listening. The messages he doesn't know I saved. This person I understand and don't understand and it doesn't matter if there was pain and endings and heartbreak because his hair is so soft on my cheek when he leans in to speak to me four months later and if my stomach is going to grab my heart because of the texture of his hair on my cheek, it doesn't really matter what we said or what anyone said. Or it does matter, because it has been done and said and now it isn't something to fear but something overcome. I will keep standing and feeling him lean close, and I will hang on to that feeling when nothing else makes sense - because words are tricky and changeable and hard. But rowed out far far into the dark hurt, he leans in with a kind face and soft hair and melted kiss eyes. It can be easier. I can let it be easier.