by Laura Winton
(09/18/02)

Touching him is all I think about.

Putting my hands on him anywhere. Leaning my head against his chest. Kneeling in front of him.

My stomach muscles contract as I think of him. My legs jerk involuntarily. I arch my back.

I can't think when he's around, so I write him long letters after the fact, telling him all the things I should have said. I want him to know I'm listening, even when all I can do is look at how beautiful his skin is, how brown his eyes are, even though all I can think about is touching him. Feel his breath on my neck. Never have words become so unimportant as I listen only for clues. Every other word is music ambient in his voice, as it fills the room and space I occupy.

I am awkward and stupid with men. This is why I gave them up willingly.

The lilac trees always take me by surprise. One day they're just there, and they smell like perfume, for only a day it seems.

At any given time I have one image from that day in my head, like a computer wallpaper in background. For a few weeks, the chubby, curly-haired man in shorts running down the sidewalk along Sixth Avenue. "Holy shit. The building's falling."

I am never dressed right for the weather.

Today I am hot and cold in the sun as the wind whips and whistles through the hoops on my ears.

Last night the chattering of my teeth, my cold extremities, as I struggled to hear his words, pull myself out of his eyes, and stop the panic that arises from the question, how soon will he stand up and walk away from me.

Sooner than I would like, the answer.

The attraction of water. So strong that even from the bridge, shaking under the weight of trucks, even several stories up, the water calls. Jump in. The waves urge you to follow. Legs buckle beneath you. The attraction of water so strong.

Walk away.

I don't want it to be my turn, but it is. Afraid to enter the marketplace. I don't want it to be my turn. I want to be in love. Touching him is all I want to think about.

Click the viewmaster. Another image pops into view. A new wallpaper has been selected.

The United Artists movie theater between SoHo and Union Square. A computer printed sign: "We are closed. If you need shelter, come in here."

I am walking downtown. It takes forever. I stop every few steps to write you down.

A day like this. Sunny and warm. I stopped every few blocks to look up at the sky. It was a day like this, when I couldn't look anyone in the face. The water falls only a few feet then backs up, but I know it's enough to disappear into. I know the shallow pull could hold me under just long enough, then push me further toward the gulf, the port of another city I would not otherwise visit.

Walk on.

Click the next slide.

People walking north covered in soot and towels. Human statues in dry plaster cast. Stoic.

I am writing something beautiful about you. I don't know what form it will take yet. That seems right.

I want to show it to you. But I'm afraid the ending will come too soon. And then no one will ever buy the premise.

If only I could speak the language of numbers, I could write us a new alphabet.

The poet philosopher revolutionary says I need to have my heart broken again.

I tell him I'm working on it.

I laugh and wish you were standing in front of me now, the way all shadows are you, until in the light they are not you.

It's not that I don't want justice. It's just that I can't be angry all the time anymore.

Click the next slide.

Junior. The beautiful Lebanese Dominican community college student who talked to me when I was evacuated from my apartment. He invited me in. It was warm on the sidewalk and my teeth weren't chattering and I could focus on his words.

Oedipus had to scratch his eyes out. He couldn't look anymore.

But that froze the image in front of him. You can't close your eyes now, Oedipus. And you can't wake yourself from the dream.

If I could burn you into my retinas one last time I could live in that moment, but Oedipus, you know that we don't get to choose our (final) (eternal) visions.

I write now in possibilities rather than sentences.

I wonder where those people are now? What are they doing? How often do they cry?

When will I ever be unguarded?

The need for something like you on my tongue, a wafer of flesh. Who makes the sacrifice?

Bind me
bundle me
b(l)ind me
b(eh)ind me
(com)bin(e)d
come, bind me
combined

If I cannot touch your words I will never learn how to read you.

I want to write you erotic.

In my dream, he is sitting on his knees next to me, naked and passive, almost mannequin-like. I tentatively start to touch his penis and he does not react. I touch him more and more with more furiousness, as if I am upset at his lack of response. It becomes surreal, his flesh becomes clay, elongating in my hand. Eventually he turns to his side and lies down by me, cradling me. I ask him if it was okay to touch him. I awake before he can answer.

High alert. In captivity people make threats. I think of my friends the artists. I think of Junior the Dominican Lebanese boy with dark eyes and curly dark hair and a soft androgynous voice. My tarot reader says 6-6 6:00.

Please don't hurt my beautiful city again.

Poet artist sculptor says a blast that kills only 50 people isn't news anymore. Our standards have changed.

I thought I heard you speak of myself. Whisper my secrets into the pauses.

The time my girlfriend and I had sex in the bathroom of McDonald's. The drive was long and difficult. You cried the whole way and then it rained. I was tense and couldn't move my legs anymore. You stopped crying and put your hand inside of me, tensing and untensing. When the rain let up we finished our journey.

People are always raising their voices, pointing their fingers angrily. I cannot raise my fist in the air. These hands only fold.

Birds can sit on telephone wires unafraid because they know they can always fly away if it breaks. If the earth opens up beneath me I have nowhere to go.

I asked you how you would describe me to my next lover.

Soft and voracious.

Will you hand me over, Judas? With a kiss.

People have Judas all wrong. All of salvation depended on Judas. He was a hero. Without Judas, there is no resurrection.

She wanted to be a Daddy's girl. But her mother needed her more. He gave her up. Handed her over. Joint custody under one roof.

You want to know how I can desire another.

Who do you love more? Me or daddy?

Aren't I enough?

I know the answer. I always knew the "right" answer.

You.

I close my eyes and dream of a world with no questions.

Every few years, a note and a babysitter.

Kiss me on the cheek my darling, and hand me over. You know I will come back to you. It's all part of the plan.

We are lying on the couch watching television. I have confessed to him how long it's been since I've been with a man, how shy I feel, but how drawn and interested. He gently slides me down and pulls himself up, unzips his pants and slips into my mouth, prying my lips apart gently. It all happens very fast. He sweetly caresses my neck, encouragingly. It is gentle, but firm. The excitement, the inevitability when we hear a lover's zipper and we know what will come next.

Brave in my fantasies...

It was never a contest.

You say if people only knew about me, my dance card would be full.

Every night.

I love you both. Come home. Don't leave me here with a stranger.

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