The Vault
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Refuge for the rational.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Sunday morning
I was reading a book today and one of the characters reminded me of you. And it got me thinking about you, even though I’ve been disinclined to do so for a very long time, even moderately fearful of the idea that you should need to be anywhere in my conscious working brain if it is at all within my control.But I know you want to be there. I know that you got off on mistaking my affection for love, but I didn’t say that and so you had no rational, reasonable justification for it. It’s ok. I’ve decided I forgive you.
That’s the Christian thing to do. Not that I’m among the saved or anything. I was a Catholic as a kid, but I guess our activities sort of throw that possibility out the window, now don’t they?
I remember thinking you looked so much taller when you were naked. I was probably smiling as I traced the line down the slight swell of your belly and past your hip-bone; clothes do a good job of giving people waistlines. You were giving me a ridiculously serious look and urging me to leave the comfort of your bed. I just didn’t want to, so I told you how much I hated the sound of your voice. Looking back, for whatever reason, that’s the only physical thing that ruined it for me—the way your voice sounds. Your nose is for breathing and blowing.
Your living room was so strangely inviting. Strange because the ceilings were high and the walls were white, and that kind of space can often feel dominating. But those old wooden floors and windowsills, and the old tattered hound’s-tooth couch—god only knows from where. And to top it all off, you put on a god-damn Velvet Underground record and made me sing along to Sunday Morning with you, giggling at the pathetic limits of your own sense of humour. You made coffee, and I sat on that couch looking out those windows wearing one of your oversized button-down shirt like some kind of sickening romantic drama cliché. If it were the eighties, I woulda had that disgusting mass of long curly hair that was somehow sexy back in the day. That would have been a bitch to get a hold of that morning.
It was warm out and the windows were open and I remember thinking that the breeze was being unusually tender for that time of year. The spring. A clean earthy smell came in with the wind, and even though the air was warm, the smell had the coolness of the rain that had fallen the night before—it tickled the inside of your nose if you took a deep breath. All of those manic sensory outbursts can make one lose their head and attribute a lot to experiences, and invent personalities for people that aren’t really there. You, for instance, were a deeply conflicted individual, well within the romantic and superficial limits of my categorizing capacities. But your kind and adorable eyes were only familiar in the context of carnal engagement, and I put my hands on your face and kissed you to make that unfamiliarity go away, to make you more like I knew you to be.
It was comfortable; the silences abounded without fidgeting or gulping or racking our brains for something to say, but it doesn’t mean I knew you. Or loved you. And your wanting to think that was the reason I hated you for a long time. Now that it’s ok, and I’ve decided I forgive you, I can admit that you were one of my favourites. It must be some innate quality, because I can’t really say why.
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