“You said I came close
as anyone’s come
to live underwater
for more than a month.
You said it was not inside my heart, it was.
The city should tear a kid apart, it does.”
Transportée ..*
black and white
Sometimes, when he pulls her hair, he isn’t violent about it.
It’s a reminder.
It says, “I’m here.”
He doesn’t even need to do much.
She’ll just grind his hand and then thank him like a sweet girl should.
Because he’s taught her to be grateful.
This is the story of the thief and the girl he took home to his partner-in-crime.
Who they were very good to, albeit a little strict.
And who he kept for a time and then returned, because being a villain is rarely as black and white as the pictures.
But who he kept a little piece of. Which is just fine, since she took a little piece of him, too.
Because when you really boil things down, we all are, in our own ways, thieves. Some of us are just better dressed for the part.
“We have power, you and I
But what good is that now
We could build a new world
If we only knew how
And we find we’re alone
We are old, you and I
We beg warmth from the sun
In the dreams that we dream
We ask what have done
And we find we’re alone.” – Jacques Brel, Alone (“Seul”).
While I was out with some friends earlier, SG and I started texting. While I have decided to postpone any more physical stuff with him until certain things clear up, I’m not opposed to the occasional something in my texts.
He does this thing where he’s so condescendingly dominant. He’ll call me things like adorable in a mocking way when I try to playfully assert myself. It makes me blush and feel so positively turned on. He’ll just tease me and it’ll drive me right up the wall in the best way.
I was feeling kind of frisky so I kept egging him on. I have to learn, however, not to dish out more than I can take. When he threatens to follow through in that way he does, it tends to weaken my resolve.
I think we all are, in our own ways, thieves. Of course, we all have different methods, different motivations, different spoils. Some of us are more overt than others. Some steal things we can line up on our mantles, others prefer taking more intangible things. We like to loot each other, to pull apart each others’ fabrics for found objects we can tuck away as if they are our own.
At the root of our nature is selfishness. We’re all wide eyes and outstretched arms and grasping fingers when you boil us down at a high enough temperature and strip off the plastic of basic interactions. We’re thieves, complete and total kleptomaniacs who take because to bring something into us makes it a part of us. We’re emotional hoarders who pile up people and moments in the cellars of whatever organ you attribute to attachment until we’ve cluttered it to fire-hazard potential. And there is no way of sorting it into piles and clearing it away because it’s become, at some very basic level, ours.
And so we steal each others’ hearts and we’re taken with each other and we become highwaymen on each others’ paths who wait for the sound of wheels. I’m not saying that we’re merciless or always harmful. I’m just saying that we’re thieves. And we take. Because that’s what thieves do.
Unfortunately, my life isn’t this glamorous.
Take, for example, the fact that I can’t sleep.
“You know, you’re very pretty,” that guy from my frat said as we waited for drinks.
I chuckled and looked over my shoulder at him, “that’s it? You’re not terribly poetic, you know.”
“Oh, come on, Ivy,” he feigned dismay. “I do science. I don’t do overtures. You want a metaphor, fine? You’re as pretty as a Diels-Adler reaction.”
“A what?”
“A Diels-Adler reaction. It’s when…” From here, he explained something scientific that went completely over my head. Noticing my confusion, he cut himself off and said, “it’s really pretty. There. There’s your metaphor.”
I moved up closer to the bar and shook my head, “that’s a simile.”
“Okay, Ivy, okay, a simile,” he placed his hand on my hip. “You’re pretty like a barium cloud.”
“That’s another simile."
"It’s beautiful, I promise,” he said and used his free hand to grab me a drink.
I smiled, “I’ll take your word for it.” I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
I guess we all have our own sorts of poetries.
I want to trust you like this. I’d like to imagine that as I heard your car pull away and smelled the exhaust that I wouldn’t panic. Because that’s the way I love someone and it’s the reason why I don’t give very many people a lot of myself, I go hard, for a lack of a better expression.
It makes everything somewhat fragile, I’ll admit, but it’s incredibly rewarding. It’s in the knives, the choking, the crazy acts of exhibitionism. I want to trust hard and I want that trust to be pushed far before being validated. Sometimes it’s frightening and sometimes it isn’t terribly safe, but that’s why I don’t do it with everyone. I wouldn’t let just anyone leave me on that road.