Storm Stoppin' Stare

She had a way, a view.

A look.

She regarded.

She sometimes started a word, a fragment of a sentence and then would smile and stop.  She wouldn't let it out.

She had mischief, fire.  Character.  A weakness for bourbon and proximity...her protests were easily eroded with a well-placed kiss and a clutch of her tailbone pulled towards me.

She had a laughter that revealed...high pitched if truly amused, low and throaty if being polite.  She spoke in a southern tongue and let words emerge only if allowed.

She played with her hair, fussing at the ends, making sure the strands were straight.  Nobody, really hardly anybody knew that when wet they curled and they were natural. 

He was so very pleased he knew such a thing.

She, despite her so infrequent words, conjured up billions...the ways she walked, a slight lean forward as she sped her way through life...the way she picked at a salad...applied gloss to her already softened lips.  The way she put up a glaze that said she was all business...

She was layers.

She loved the beach...loved the sand.  She loved the arc of a sun, the glimpse of a moon...colors in-between.  She remained. 

And every so often, when I could find her...join her...and I caught that stare of hers...when she was melding alongside of me, a folding of limbs and I could feel her heartbeat and I could hear the hitch in her breathing...I held crushed in the stare of hers...unblinking, unstopping, consuming me and penetrating me to hold onto her, be into her, and stay with her.

It was palpable...

mostly remembering it as she was departing, when her brief stare glanced against me and was soon looking to where she was going.

A Blister

So the hug had come and gone and now they were staring at whatever came next.

What, she had stated, watching him, remarking him and stepping back a few feet from where she had been...which was literally in his arms but was now a bit of a distance.

Nothing...he started...it's just increasingly difficult to let you go...and not like a release...rather, it's just like a departure.

She was still pretty close...close enough for him to grasp the scent of her potions, the hairspray...the tiny elements of her make-up that he could detect.  He more or less detected her as much as he saw her...she invaded his senses far more than just the visual.  She was as much an allergen, a pathogen...she invaded his breathing and infused herself into him...all without her knowing.

I'm doing all that I can...I suppose the best that I can.

I know.

But you...she hesitated...which she did when she muscled words out of her mouth...you think I'm not?

Clear bait.  He wasn't going to completely bite.

There is some friction here...he started...like when something is very comfortable when it first fits...and you wear it so well...you forget it's even there...but after awhile...some time....well, the bit of friction is enough to raise a welt...a small irritation...and then it becomes something bigger.

Am I that irritation?  She ventured and moved her head a bit...an annoyance. 

God no...no.  It's in these departures...these disconnections...these moments when we take the together parts and move them into the "well, these are no longer together" parts and it chafes and it rubs hard against leather and it just causes us to feel a pain point.

She looked at him and her eyes were full of extraordinary understanding...like they usually were...but her brain, and her synapses and her words were carefully sculpted...they had the benefit of reason and they were blurbs in the air between them...he rightfully wondered if they were completely naked at that moment, aligned and intertwined if her vocabulary would change...he thought about that a moment.

Are you saying I'm that irritation? she asked again.

He inhaled and let a smooth long peel come out of him...hoping to explain that yes, indeed she was the source of his skin against skin pronouncement...that she was the rubbing edge of a sun against a horizon...she was the invading light of a summer moon against a chalkboard black sky...she was the sifting of sands against a copper tin bowl seeking gold...she was always friction because she was the counterbalance....the weather combination that produced storms. 

No...I'm sorry.  Not that type of friction.

Well than what type am I?

He paused for a tiny second...you know the static sparks you see when you pull up the sheets?  When you are just about to descend into sleep and you have one last muscle memory to quickly tug and allow the spread of cotton across you?  And that few bits of kinetic energy that camera flashes in tiny pieces? 

Yeah, I've done that.

Well...that is you...at least the resistance that I think you cause.

An Airport

There is a bit of a metaphor in us...a bit of a theme.  A recurrence, a meme.  A view that if perceived outside of this relationship would mutter "ah, this makes sense now." 

But while in it there is some challenge at seeing it like I do.

You are an airport to me.  A departure.  An arrival.  A missed connection.  A luxurious upgrade.  The beauty (and that is the critical word here, for it is quite beautiful) is the completely unexpected experience that you bring...will you even arrive, will you show up? 

I have wandered many airports without you, and I've called you many times from them.  The association is very complete...I am transient.  I am mobile. You remain unwavering, wherever you are.  I rotate around you, like John Donne's Compass, and you suddenly become the Sun to my world.  I revolve around you.

I miss you most when I am surrounded by people.  I am alone when I am amongst the many.  Clearly the dichotomy of being around others but feeling most lonely against them is enough to say that you cut through the time, the distance, the geography.  You become the destination.  You become home. 

That is a dangerous power.

That is a way to invade me unequaled. 

You invade me like something undiscovered but yearned for forever.

You are why I glide through and march with the others and carry the bags and hopefully enter the shape of a door and walk through it to find you.

Because the only thing worse than departing from you is the chance that I never return to you.

And the only thing better than returning to you is the chance to do it again...and again...and again.

Nudity

I'm not quite sure if I'd be completely at home on a nude beach...I think it just depends.  I think I'm very comfortable with being nude, I just am unsure about the whole public thing.

But if it was just you and I....then that's different.  Shedding clothes while standing on a big towel, nobody in site for miles...a cooler of beer that is icy cold...that I can see.  That makes me think differently...

Sunsets would be pretty amazing I think in such a place...the wind picking up and maybe, god forbid, causing us to actually start putting clothes back on.

But I think the most inviting time would be at dusk, when the sun has gone down but it's not completely dark...when you can still see stars but you can also see the horizon.  And to swim in the still warm waters completely naked, a little sting of sunburn and the taste of salt in your mouth....and to cling to each other as the moon rose and we let the tide push and pull at us...just melting into each other.

I'd be down for that.

Sweet Sweat

The sweet sweat of you

a nectar, the juicy pulp,

the salt of you, sliding slowly down your skin.

Liquid, beads of perfectly formed golden tastes of you, dampening your forehead, just beneath your hairline, the colors changing as they spill towards parts untanned.

Caught in a kiss, a wet mouth, a brief crush. 

Let your sweat become mine, let ours create more, let us mingle. 

And allow an afternoon breeze to stir up, wick away the wet, and leave us slightly shivering...

requiring us to collide again, if only to stay warm.

Strawberry Moons

A rare coincidence.

A bit like you and me.

Tonight is a once in a generation pairing...the start of summer and the emergence of a full Strawberry Moon. 

According to Native American Algonquin tribes, it signaled the start of the strawberry season...not seen since 1967...

and not seen again until 2062...

46 years from now.

So while I will not live to see that one (probably...who knows...I work out and am kinda healthy) I will take sweet strawberry like delight in knowing that perhaps tonight you're looking at the same one, at the same time.

A rare coincidence.

A lot like you and me.

Monday

Everybody's working...starting the drudgery.  Starting the slink back into office-mode and slowly getting the work-rate to increase and be somewhat productive.

But today is the official start of summer...the first full moon of the season as well.  Together, I can feel different about today...I can relax, I can breathe in. 

I can try to get sunburnt.

I can try to get drunk.

I can try to get a nap in, and maybe, just maybe, get a dream of you in it.