I’ve been in my head. I’d rather be inside you, beside you, with you.

You’ve been in my head where increasingly is the only place you exist for me.

Being with you through a screen is not good enough. I will put the phone down and you along with it.

Updates to Select Parts of The Lord’s Prayer

…

Give us this day our daily bread,
and the bakery too.
And, forgive us our trespasses,
as you give us the strength to not fuck up those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
But, Lord, even You You know You made us this way.
Deliver us from evil,
even as we try very hard to deliver ourselves unto it.

…

And, you dared

And, you dared
To think you could own her,
Her body,
Her luscious body
which you can never get enough of.

Her mind,
from where words endless stream,
words wielded to connect
with you,
to weld you to her,
never-ending,
words you daydreamed about
as you lay back spent,
exhausted in her, by her.
Exhausted for her.

Her heart,
Her big heart that loved you
even when you deserved nothing,
That you hope still loves you,
still clings to you,
as you cling to your notions
of not being bewitched,
Not by her,
but by yourself through her,
Slowly driven mad by the awareness
that her love may now burn for another.

Her.
Herself.
Her personhood,
That you feel slighted
when she lives her
life without you,
that she is not yours to own,
that she is just in your life,
when she slips into silence,
that warm cave you know so well
to which you have retreated
so often when she became too much.

She is too much,
Maybe too much for you.
You became less
as she became more.
You couldn’t see it,
not when lost in her,
Her heady essence,
Raw sweat and skin,
barely able to contain
the throbbing in your loins
and the agonised longing
in your heart.

No money,
No time,
Nothing given,
even with two hearts,
Can keep her,
And why would you want to?
Why would you want to
coddle and cajole and curse
her back to you?
To love yourself through her,
even as you just now admit you love her?
Feel the burn
of desire unrequited,
and smile to yourself
that this is what it means
to grieve.
No time.
Time is gone,
seems like.

And, yet, you dared.

Words sound hollow,
stretching the silence
and the distance,
like long cold blades
drawn out
with delicious near-malice.
What is left to say
to pull you back?
What is left to do
when I am here
and you are there?
Even when I am there,
Even when you are here,
when I am in your space,
inside you,
when you become my space,
adorning me with yourself,
chocolate on my skin,
and I become fully yours,
and you become fully mine,
is it enough?
Is it ever enough?

Possible Responses to “Praise God”

Amen!

This is the default reply, ingrained from years of going to church, that even now I find I just barely catch myself uttering it.

So, why say it? Because it’s easier to let the other party assume we share a faith since they’ll leave me alone sooner.

What God?

I’m more likely to say this now, with a smirk and a wink. Depending on the person who asked, I may say it to get a rise out of them.

Sometimes, I’ll be asked why I don’t believe in God. Sometimes, I’ll get into the weeds of why. Other times, I’ll say I still do but lost my faith. As above, I’m sooner left alone, but with a pitying look and an obligatory “I’ll pray for you”, or something along that line, said out loud or in their hearts.

Why?

As above, getting a rise out of someone, but with a dash of bile. These are the days I don’t care enough to be polite.

Shut the fuck up.

I talk to myself often, so much so it’s visible, a running commentary both inside and outside my head. The person I think I am, the person I am when I’m doing this is a whip-smart suave and confident motherfucker who lives life with his balls out. His real-life counterpart, much less so.

I itch thinking about deploying this rude refrain, hurling this grenade into the comfortable garden the pious have built, where they are rarely openly challenged, just for the sheer delight of seeing the horror on their faces. A guy can dream.

 

Silence