Perimeters

December 19th, 2023

When he comes back to our couch leftovers in hand for me, they’re cold. I wonder whether he is offbeat or neglectful, already attached to his company all the same. His relationship with portions is measured, I learn. Refrigerated parcels of mashed potato, serious green matters, turkey, and pecan pie sector the plate  nothing touching. He’d dropped blueberries, he shares. While arranging my plate, the blueberries in the fridge fell. I picture them streaming in all directions, taunting him under the fridge. His six-foot-four frame bent to the floor in pursuit of feral blue babes. Large fingers, careful, handling the dwarfish runaways. 

In bed, he is mostly still, and I  an unruly piranha. I flop around, bite him in erratic cadences. Gridlocked with affection, I must fasten my jaw to him. Before long  soon  there’ll be no more bed. Unlike bodies in unlike places, my milk teeth faithfully still in his back. I am studying force  perimeters. How far I’m permitted to impose myself until he erupts with terrific spirit. Fight back, I whisper, as I wrestle with his slack weight, intending to upset his mildness. I’d like him to insist on his strength, not to cede to him but to come to know my own authority. I put my finger up his nose, he recoils in discontent! The sternness of his reaction spooks me. I have gone too far, invited myself somewhere I’m unwanted. I won’t do it again, I promise in earnest, quickly worried about turning him away, losing something. More chances ahead for pajama parties. His soft penis snug against my backside as he holds on, revising me as precious. My ecstatic luck, his permission, to be near. 

Come morning, we get clean before having more sex. I am controlling, God willing must be a step ahead. When nudged into draining cock the minute I stir, I keep my eyes shut, braced for the discovery of something foul in me. He’s hardworking with my center, large fingers heating and beckoning me over the snowy bank with him. Nearly there  close  I’m delicately seizing in his palm. Too scary no more I retract give him back his lovesome fingers. He misunderstands, amused by my invented fear of unfeminine ugliness if I come. My tactically composed face disfigured in its surrender to pleasure. I don’t set the truth right, pressing on with milking him, though his misreading thins my enjoyment of him in me. Articulating lumpish distance between us when I yearn to feel ingrown. It’s not distrust of my appeal that frightens me, but my body’s insight that his offers no solidity. If I let myself come, he will fall apart from under me.  

He’s done, and as our bodies come down, I’m dumbly crying. I must wish for him to know because I let sniffles slip. What’s happening down there, he asks, my chin in his hand. Firm  tender  my chin in an undressed man’s hand. I don’t use my words, and he doesn’t press. It must be my way of finishing. Tending to some dull grief in my center. Maybe, the relief I’m in need of for now, subtler than men’s two-dimensional rendition of pleasure. Setting free disappointment, how do others manage? Year by year, I let mine overrun me from November to May.  

After, he makes us coffee and plates slim lines of pie. It is nearly afternoon as we sit, across from each other. I like the daylight  how he is still in his underwear  how he is a person who is not me. Every so often, my heart wanders to his window while I listen to him talk of nothing. I catch planes passing. My imagination, faith, rush into undressed men, but it is nearly afternoon. The daylight clean  soft with us. His quaint gestures, the pace of my chest, slow. I’ve only ever fumbled first times with strangers, he is something untried, my friend supposedly. My draw to him lacks fury. No emergency to disown myself for his joy during sex. None of wherever you like  come  decorate and erase me however you like. I could like someone better, but the things I like are legitimate and taking place right now. I could like someone better, but I like my finger up his funny nose. I like his hard work and inarticulateness, the sincerity with which he approaches art, the seriousness with which he takes my work. In the cinema, side by side, I watch the creases in his forehead lit up by beats of color. How he paws popcorn into his hole with coarse force. I like watching, wishing he would take some time to watch me too. There are things I dislike, changeless truths I’m already disappointed by, but they carry no weight in my imagination. Ready to welcome all sorts of dissonance for my ecstatic luck  his permission  more pajama parties. 

All done, he carols when we’re done with pie, poking fun at how sated children talk. Outside our bed, he doesn’t touch me. When I force myself home, he hardly kisses me goodbye. Arranged too differently from me. Reserving flares of feeling for narratively sensible peaks while I favor hands smearing me across walls noon and night. Skittish and undemonstrative   he will get on with his day  he does. I’d like to stay longer. Come by most days and practice love’s humdrums with him. Sled a soaked tissue along his bathroom sink to wipe his stubble’s debris. Bask on his floor pantless and delight in the noise of him organizing his cubbies. Fish out my grubby contacts and let them curl up atop his nightstand. For good reason, he won’t bend to the self-interest of my loneliness, but I’d like to. Come by most days and perfect how to keep him company. Beyond bedtime with an unarmed man to trust in, I don’t fall for time. It is too fast  watered down and unreal  smudges me across my days. I cannot swear by the certitude of my form without another’s outline giving shape to mine. I flit from clattery place to clattery place and observe others coming along, knowing I am only imitating. 

But he is my friend supposedly, not an idea or aspiration to impose my care-taking upon, so I take me and my self-interest home. I force myself home where I’m unheld, disappointed by him, and still imagine our bare feet warm in bed. What a vain way of practicing faith, hoping I will persuade sensible men of my worthwhileness amid my illogic. He gets on with his day  he does  I feign getting on with mine. All done, he clarifies only once I push him, better to abstain from more blowjobs since he favors unfussy traps. Barf  I barf my fussy feelings all over his good sense. He falls apart from under me  blacks me out  I don’t hear from him for days. Hands full with days to get on with, mistaken for trusting me to stomach unfussy fucking.