Boundaries
April 28, 2009Thankfully it doesn’t happen often. If I were in charge of Gougourounia it most definitely would not – as a rule. So, Conan has a drum. Well, good for him. The way he beats it just makes me want to borrow it, keep it… for a while.
My heart and soul are pissed off with me. So would you be,if someone were to pull a stop|start|go|no|yes stunt on you the way I have. But screaming “fuuuuuuuuck!!” at me won’t stop me from persistently trying to crash my own hard drive, or stuffing my head full of rocks, for that matter. Deep breath.
I respect the boundaries I found, as well as the choices people make and by which they live. For themselves as well as for one another. And then I find something. Someone. And something. Suddenly I am struck. I can feel emotions creeping up on me and I’m irresistibly drawn.
I touch and I feel a charge. I hear a breath with a voice all its own. There is definitely pleasure there and around us. I resist at the point I would ask and want more. It’s the ‘right’ thing, dontcha know…dontcha know.
Now, the existence of ‘right’ may well be called into question. It is almost never the same word or meaning twice. Almost never. I feel that when we fused, as it were, it was just right. Do I mean true. Yes, maybe that makes more sense. Ah, maybe true is true. True is true.
Almost at the speed of light? No. I take my goddamn time and go round and about like a silly boy on a bicycle. Look. No hands. And eventually, kiss, speak, touch, tears. Yes, you guessed right; ‘right’ thing just flew out the window. After all that resistance, day after day in a private time warp.
It is not a showdown between ‘my rules’ and ‘your rules’ as if on a quest for compromise. One soul seeks the other. Naturally, instinctually, it’s almost primal. No, not scary at all. Scary would be not being able to let go when you respect. Why in hell would one want to suffocate what is at the centre of such an intimate universe?
Resistance came with every step. Is it more selfish to speak or to keep quiet? Timing. Comedy. Yes, well, the facts remain as they are. More fluid in some ways than we may realise. Priorities don’t dictate but they make for a pretty good guide. So that getting lost does not become piece-of-piss easy.
There are times when one doesn’t need to pepper dubious prose with the word love or throw in the odd ‘in love’ for good measure.
Never say never, you said.
I won’t.
“My grandfather was decorated with seven medals and he kept them in an ordinary, grey cardboard box – you know the kind that absorbs moisture.” He said.
I wondered how many kinds of box there were.
It was abstract like all his comments. Unless you had followed his train of thought through the blizzards of Stella Artois clouded with Gauloises puffed out in time to the rapid, hypnotising chug of his jumping bean brainpower.
And even then it was difficult.
The ethereality of smoke floated lazily above our heads; a copy of Macbeth was cast on the table cheek to cheek with a coffee ringed Harvard Business Review. A dirt-caked tome of Jung (cruddy in appearance and as dodgy in content) presided over the piles of cigarette butts in the fireplace. He was an intellectual. At least to a non-intellectual’s eye. That would be me.
“If ever you are unsure of anything I say, ask. I want to be clear. Us to be clear. I must let you go. But I cannot. I won’t. Which means I will. Because you must be who you are. And I cannot destroy what I love.”
Clear as fucking mud then.
My mouth twitched from side to side in hungry contemplation. He was fascinating …desperately …painfully…challenging. Every conversation tantalised me with ideas and had me fishing into deeper darker waters. I never knew what I would say before I said it. And yet alongside the fear of exposing my stupidity was also the childlike thrill of adventure. Discovery of new lands, new colours. His eyes matched my own, wide and sparkling. We climbed higher and higher inside our bubble until at last when we exhausted our prose, we made poetry under the peeling paintwork. Again and again.
Usually bubbles burst.
POP!
This one sidled out under the door and didn’t leave a gap. No gaping hole. It left the tail end of a question mark.
Never say never, I said.
I won’t.