Confession

I have been avoiding this place. Words seem contrived. Sentiment stretched.

The waves are still in me. It’s an evening ocean right after sunset, glass. What brings this on? You tell me. Is it the soothing touch of someone who makes me feel safe? Or is it that I have backed off, retracted into a more secret place within myself.

My book tick tocks. I find myself pretending, yet feeling the memories that sneak through. All writers write what they know. I have felt that disappointment. I have tasted those tears.

I have felt that thrill.

Lately I have had reminders of Tennessee. The sudden surprise of the rain, swift and violent on the roof of the porch, petering out to that smooth blue sky. How the tobacco barns are like mouths open to the field, hungry for the leather brown of fall. I remember the moon most of all. How come it seemed ten times as big from that Tennessee sky than at home? Yes, and I remember him.

More than him. I remember what it felt like to be loved.

This weekend I had some sort of talk. Opened myself to possibility. Made the choice to be less protective. But when it comes down to it, there is only so much I can open the door for anyone. Someone needs to take the initiative. Quit being so polite. We all should quit being so fucking polite.

I don’t miss love. I miss love. I think love is purchased at Wal-Mart. I think love is plastic and transparent. I think love is hard. I think love is cruel. It think love is nothing that we have a word for. Real love. It is “ “. The word with no letters. It is nothing that I can place my finger on. What I felt in Tennessee was not love. It was something that sung out in the dark like the katydids. Far more beautiful than the simple biological make up of the insect. It’s better to imagine it beautiful. Than the reality that you would not want it in your bed. In your window. In your garden. In your heart.

Quit trying to tell me what I should name this ache. It is more complex than rhetoric.

I have been seeing this nice boy. Who is afraid of emotion. It’s like a pack of rabid dogs some woman has sent out after him into the yard. I keep saying, relax. Not me. And I mean it. But I worry that when the time comes I will have gotten so used to reassuring men that it’s ok… Not me, that I will even deny my own sentiment. My “ “.

All I know. Is. That. It. Is. Not. In. Me.

(It’s ok you. No worries.)


G.