Compass Rose

A Februrary morning in 1989. Two decades measured out in the slow ordinary things: breaths, conversations, meals made and eaten. Nothing has come of it. The universe's investment in me, manifested by my hot, peculiar little space in it, remains unreturned upon. I have done nothing of note. I remain myself: self-conscious, angry, too apathetic even to feed myself anything more complicated than a Pot Noodle. I am the definition of ennui.

My heart is a spinning compass needle. I don't know if it will settle.

Staring Across The Pond

November, and the world’s made anew. At the heart of it all, disbelief. We keep his title in our mouths, hefting the weight of it on the tips of our tongues like stones to throw should they try to take it from us: President-elect Barack Obama, every unfamiliar syllable spelling the advent of change.

Kissing

Lean close. Flesh and flesh draw together. Hot. Tense. The air between lips is pregnant with something heavy, instinctual. Collision of breath. Moving towards. And then.

Touch, kiss, part, press, communion of warm soft skin. A sudden snarl and flame of want burns through like a match, lit. Control slips away and you never even feel it go.

Eating In

In my world, food is an event. It is simple. It is visceral. It is an experience preserved intact from childhood, a lifebuoy in the fragmentary and bruising grown-up world. Tomato soup, macaroni cheese, boiled egg and toast soldiers. I use it to beat away the encroaching greyness.

Stuttering

Stutter.

Like my tongue’s tangled, like the words are too thick in my mouth, like my brain skipped (like it was a record). I make a running leap for a word and fail, come unstuck amidst these sticky consonants. Trying like an engine to turn over the syllable.

Wait. Stop. Take a breath, close my eyes a second, half a second.

Try again.