Pauses in the Early Times

 

Looking back, he could only think about geometry.  Physics...timing.

What had led him to intersect her...or perhaps her arc merely melted into his...an apex, an arrival.  A collision.  

Either way, he was surprised when he heard her voice in a place most unexpected...a SoHo bar, late at night, in an evening surprisingly quiet in its weekday wear.  

But there are very few voices that ring the chimes in his head.

Is that really you? she said.  He tilted his head, wondering if the words were even intended for him to hear.  He didn't hear a reply and fully turned.

And she was there.  In a place they had never been together...but now were.  Outside a sudden ambulance siren broke the evening and he had to delay his response, so they stood there...this collision unfolding in silence and she didn't blink once.  Rather she just stared.

Then, it got quiet and yet he was gently reminded how much he enjoyed just the quietness of her and how he could simply stay and stand with her.  Or stare.  Didn't really matter, their were arcs intersecting, complicated algorithms that had landed her here.  

What are you doing here he asked and immediately was regretful and rapidly added I mean, it's rather amazing you are here....but...really.  What are you doing here?

She smiled...she already had a drink in her hand and she was a bit in shadows in the dim lit bar...he could see her face, but not much more.  He could see her eyes though.

I just stumbled upon you.

She cocked her head as was her wont...and regarded him.  

Well, he offered...there is no stumbling.

Yet she replied.

So she joined him and her glass was empty and then it was replenished and they spoke about a million things, nothing special, just catching up...just this arc of a story that suddenly intersected.  They were huddled, hunched together...almost like their bodies made the shape of a heart if you were to see them at the bar.

It wasn't much longer than lights started alighting and the bar became an overhead distraction.  He paid and asked her where she was heading.

South.

They walked a bit, avoiding the uneven bricks in deep Soho streets and the scattered landscape caused them to sometimes bump into each other, a slight move into her,  a lean into him...a random intersection of bodies and sinew and muscles aligning...for just the briefest of moments.  In his mind he accounted for each little movement, his hand in the gentle part of her back, and when the tiny collision occurred it was like flint and rock.  

They ambled down the darkened street, coming into the circle of a streetlight the returning to a shadow.  As they walked and she sometimes got closer he could smell her perfume.

As they passed on particular dark brick alcove he felt her briefly stumble, and he pushed her alongside her back and his other arm came across her front...it was almost a hug but in his mind it was a catch...and she walked backwards a few steps until the bricks stopped her and he was brought closer into her...and in that moment she leaned forward with a kiss...a first quick kiss with cool lips and then he felt her warmth and she intersected and collided with him and her hands pulled him towards her and the geometry of them allowed for the perfect of angles and in the dark, if you could see their bodies intertwined and the shape of them in that alcove it almost like the perfectly drawn curves of a heart.

Soothe

 

She is like awaking to a rain storm...not thundering but rather the brushing of rain against a window, painting the house in the gray colors of a drizzle.  A rhythmic sense, the way a squall builds...the pressure changes, the bit of stillness in the air...then the gradual pulse...the building of ingredients...wind, clouds, and the heavy bit of moisture that fills in the clouds and begs for release.

She is like a puffy-eyed awakening...an over-sleep, when the color in the room is brighter than it should be, the day has gotten away from you, but there is no remorse of the extra hours or minutes that you lingered in bed...scant dreams, barely remembered, just the warmth of covers and unruly hair...an awakening and you are hungry.

She is the butterfly amongst the flowers, the rainbow after rain.

The greenlight just as you approach an intersection.

The salted caramel on the tongue, the bit of chocolate on the angel-food cake.

The IV drip.

She spackles my life, covering my holes, smoothing me in uneven patches.

She sits in an easy-chair in my mind, subtly rocking, subtly moving and stays empty-church quiet until a bit of me gets a splinter and she extracts it and kisses the wound and I barely notice...until she needs to do it again and then it becomes a pattern and she begins to become more than a want...she becomes a need and I awaken to a thought of her...and then I think of her as my day begins and I am soothed.

Echoes

 He awoke in the grey that plastered the city in its shawl, pulled up to its chin, trying to kick off the cold of the morning and knowing there would be no sunrise.  There would be no smooth transition from the nighttime to the day.  No handshake of relinquishing the end of something and the new beginning.

He was cold.

And he knew that she wasn't anywhere close.

Surrounded by millions is a bit like being a kid in the McDonald's playpen, surrounded by balls of colors that are just adornments...hoping you don't get infected by something, someone.  High up above the avenues of the city he hoped for quiet...no sirens, no horns.  Just the smooth sounds of the heat perhaps coming on.

In the awakening of an early morning, the brain craves warmth...comfort...peace.  He felt absence...a gap. He wasn't awake enough to clutch the day yet...but he had resigned himself that the sleep was dead.  It was a gray, blank area when the mind becomes singularly focused.

She came into view.

Well, not her per se, but her presence.  Her curves as she lay horizontal...her warmth, her breath.  A small dent in the mattress beside him...a murmur of breathing...asleep.  It was like she could place her hand on his fast beating heart and calm him...that she could pull him into her and become entangled...

He squinted at the clock...4am.

Too early to rise.

He imagined her near...the scent of her hair and her profile...he could almost imagine her breathing patterns and tried to mimic them...be her mirror...he might even tug her over, have her envelope him...maybe hear her murmur something in her sleep.

But in his male mind he ultimately remembered mutterings of her bliss, and when he had pleased her and in the quiet corridors of New York they echoed in his mind, and he craved the sounds in his ear, the dense heat of proximity, the feel of her against him and the way he placed his mouth over hers to quell her to a quietness that he was now listening to in a room with a view.

It was grey outside his window...but in his mind it was a season like summer and he let her burn herself on him like so many orange embers, echoing in his thoughts and limbs and burning into his memory. 

Winter Solstice

 

When the earth reaches its maximum tilt away from the sun...it is furthest from the glow.  It is the same in every departure of hers as his world grew cold each time, a perma-frost that remained until her silhouette broke across his horizon again.

She nestled in his mind like a cat, furled up and warm, curled up and cozy.  She had started out so very small in his world, barely a brick and now had created something extraordinarily beautiful, a cathedral where he could practice his faith in her...his devotion.  His religion.

An art museum, where he could walk echoing stretches of marble flooring and gaze at perspectives of her...lit by memories and painted in permanence that he could revisit time and again...and each time together added new hallways, new facades in this never ending art of her.

An opulent hotel, but with only one large penthouse suite...with a massive claw-foot tub that overlooked massive city lights...an array of scented candles arranged nearby, with steam arising off the waters that would envelope them...the heat of the waters mirroring the heat of her, when immersed in her.  The slight beads of sweat across a brow, the tips of her hair darkening in the water...

A winter cabin, with no internet access or even phone service, with plenty of split firewood ripened to burn...with outdoor flood lights that illuminate a blizzard...a bed by the window laden with heavy blankets and a fridge filled with liquor.  A calendar with a black marker to measure time in days versus hours...and let those hours be spent together, engulfed in conversation and quietness.

A porch at sunset, oriented to the west, with a bottle of bourbon and a bucket of ice.

A towel on a beach.

The agonizingly empty places that existed when not together...but when together, anywhere, would embody all the places he ever wished he could be.

Good Morning

You say good morning to strangers...you politely await the glance, the brief recognition that their eyes are locked on yours, even if just for the briefest of moments...although if they glance away you only need to nod your head in acknowledgment...but if they linger a bit past a second and maybe even start to cock a smile then you unleash it with full intent.

And there is only so much time for this window of greeting...I don't think people generally say good afternoon or good evening...they say goodnight when closing a child's door or when hanging up the phone after dinner.  It is a hopeful term where as good afternoon/evening are polite bit of rhetoric that could be solved by merely saying hello or hi.

She liked to say hi, at all hours.  First thing in the morning or when we came up for air after an elongated kiss.

It was a friendly greeting, simple and intimate.  Probably the shortest way to say something but it carried in her tone something so much deeper...almost to the point where you felt like it was exclusive to you.

and it usually was because she saved it for when there was no distance between us...and we had come to find ourselves there...interlocked, intertwined.  Like we had discovered a reveal...unraveled a bow around a box and found sudden treasure.

It wasn't a code we spoke...although at times he had to pull words out of her like hard steel nails rusted into weathered wood.  But over time words occasionally spilled unexpectedly, a break in a dam...and he grasped for them like one attempts to catch water or rain...an impossible feat but he could feel tiny bits hitting his hands and his fingers but mostly they fell away and soon evaporated.

And there was the one time, the first time...when she calmly asked do you wanna make love?

As casual as asking to pass the salt, as comfortable as asking to turn up the heat...but in this case the spice and the source of warmth were her and it was an offering...no shyness, no ambiguity.  Declarative.  Yet in her soft spoken notes it was gentle and affirming.  She already knew the answer.  But hearing it inside my mind I finally did catch the rain, I finally clutched the water and I got to hold it in my hands and consume it, breathe it in, bask in it...and it wasn't even really a question as much as it was an invitation.

An Episode

She opened the door slightly, her hair up and she was leaning through

the brief gap in the

doorframe…

she smiled and opened it up wider, revealing that she was wearing a

robe.

She walked slowly towards the mirror, the robe gaping in parts…

tiny glimpses

of a Christmas package being slowly unwrapped…he sat on the

edge of the bed,

saw her and her reflection intertwine like an upside down v

as she applied colors and powders…she would

occasionally glance at him and raise an eyebrow. 

It was like a dare. 

Somewhere inside of him,

like a click of metal upon metal, a spark bloomed

into a pilot light blaze.

Outside the bathroom in the expansive space some music played,

too low to

hear the words but enough to be noticeable.

One table lamp was on,

lighting up a tiny corner of the room where

the rest of it was in a glow

from the late afternoon sun spilling in from the

large window. 

Near the bed two candles burned in tiny whites and yellows. 

The space felt like a spa and her proximity

made it even more languid…

her movements were liquid, like she was underwater…

from his view she fluttered in and out of the scene,

a ballet of preparation…

and he caught parts of her scent, her lotions and perfume. 

She smelled clean, the entire room felt showered and

scrubbed and her glances were

lingering upon him as much as

the soap sensation he inhaled.

She came to him and leaned down to kiss him. 

A demure bit of a hint. 

Something portending.  The whiff of copper

before a lightning strike.

Her mouth was warm and relaxed…it was a greeting. 

But her eyes had been open and they

squinted something more inviting…

a bit more promising.

If she was a recipe she was the

type handed down from a southern

grandmother’s hand…old school

cursive with lard as a critical

ingredient and a loving amount of

measurements poured out from

memory versus math….

the heft and feel of flour or a rolling pin

that had seen its days…

perfection handed down via generations,

never skimping or deviating but

rather just evolving slowly until

the taste on the tongue was perfection…

each and every time.

If she were to be a rain storm she would

be in August, in the heat

of summer after an oppressive afternoon

with low dark rumbles

starting to echo in the outskirts of an evening…

a relief effect of

anticipating the cooling impact upon arrival…

when the lights in

the house blink on and off due to the interruptions…

the flash-bulb moments and the near immediate thunder…

concussive….

the smell of the rain and the noise on the roof…

you felt safe inside but were amazed at the

rawness outside…

and when you slowly succumbed to your

bed the splashing and

winds became calming…

white noise that helped you to sleep.

If she was a season she would be Fall…

mercurial, at times like an

Indian Summer, blooming after a

season of heat and signaling the

temperate ways of cool mornings

yielding to warm afternoons…

they type of day you want to start

with in bed, layers of covers

and then emerge to a gauzy fog

only to have the sun burn through it…

and be warm upon the bricks of a stoop…

meanwhile,

the colors exploding around you,

twirling to the ground

and a thousand versions of

red and orange ultimately

turning to the color of her brown eyes.

He leaned back on the bed,

smelled the candle

burning its scent into the air,

the afternoon yellowing

through the window and the soft music playing.

He had found perfection.

Crisp

 I am your fall.

I fuel the sugary sap within you, the pulse of you across your limbs, the oxygen you create as you take my toxic air within and breathe out the impurities of me.

I fill your mind with a thousand leaves, brightly and brilliantly colored...and then, soon, I become a memory...flicked from your fingers to lie at your feet in tiny shades that mirror sunrises and sunsets...and lay there, quietly...until somebody else walks by, crushing tiny spines and crackling in the crisp of a season.

Or perhaps gathered into handfuls and put into a burn-pit...smoldering like the way I burn for you.  Inhaling a scent only known in an October or November.  This is the scent of a harvest time, when a world is turning...a decay that is beautiful and quickening.  

It is the way the sun shimmers in the branches and remaining leaves of a treeline that was once all shade...like a whittled down forest that loses its protective coverings...stick-figures where once full bodies stood.

I want to cling to you, clutch you.  I want to open up like an unfurled leaf craving the sun...veins of me rich with your light...

But I fear I am soon seasonal...in a bit of blaze I tumbleweed down and join the forest floor...but I am grateful as I gaze upwards at your arms, knowing I was once embraced...and perhaps I can return some day in a spring that reminds me of the endless season that I find in you.