NCOD 2005 Collabo w/ Arriella

i didn’t know what to do when she (he) touched me

kissed me
we had just come to one of those arangements so common in
sleepovers and cheap pornos
to see what all the fuss was about
except from the look in her eye and they way her hand lay on my leg

when his hand brushed my thigh in a way unobtrusive but exploring
i didn’t know what to do when he followed me upstairs

i suspected this was an excuse

ready to study but bookless
taunt and tease the only implements in his pencil case

and i knew i was no less guilty

when the highlighter flew from my hand and i was 7 years old
being taunted by the pretty little girl with pigtails and plastic jewel barrettes

i noticed how beautiful she was,
the smoothness of her hair, sleek, shining down shoulders
and a sibilant s that i might have been too young to find sexy
but did anyway

i didnt know what to do when i was 18 going on 13 all over again

and i didnt know what to do

the dropped voice, insecurity, nothing compared to the inability to articulate the thrills he sent through me

but she kissed me i kissed her

we kissed

lying side by side, he and i, neither spoken, lying in bed together, under sheets together, heads rest together, slowly inch together, fingers nest together and

and i knew it was she who slipped her tongue, strong and sweet, under mine, through lips, parted pink from pressure, rose with a too-many-sweaters-on-a-snow-day-flush.
breath to dew on my neck, like the sweat i felt on her palms, and skin, seasoned, sea-salty siren’s flesh.

worlds crack together

and i pulled away with seismic shudders,
because my hands were all wrong and my breath was too fast and i knew i shouldnt care as much as i did
if she wanted to feel me as much as i wanted her right at that moment
with a love that was quickly becoming corrupted, confusedly, confoundingly
akward
i was so akward, but she was sure
and i loved her

spilling out onto the walls, dawn had no name that morning and midnight no meaning
what broke and spilled open was not birdsong but heart strong and beating, brilliant light
the warmth of that morning where legs were allowed to rest together, where arms could hold together could not be said to be the day.

late night TV in the background and the sounds of her parents snoring one room over and our breaths so heavy

the warmth of suns that bright are only in eyes that shimmer and beg for that first touch, that rolling over, that facing, inch foward, kiss
i could not tell you what it meant then

in the rumples of the sheets in the morning

i could not tell you what it means now

eyes like cue balls impacting into divergence

Eyes furtive

the heat of capillaries obscuring freckles

Fear coursing

her flinch my my foot brushed hers beneath the breakfast table

My heart was not fully there
My lips would not conceded the point

and she said she didnt mean it

light only made the distance greater

but the fevered, ferverent, dangerously desperate embraces we stole behind pantry and closet doors
held an irony not lost on me at the time

Between he and I was me and her
Between his and mine were rites of betrayal and soulless
Between you and me, I could not do it

and when i finally pushed courage into taut, tense tendons, grabbing her hand, cold,
as we walked up the street
three weeks after our first kiss

The kiss, the breath, the pulling back

her stiffness shoved the shame, prickling and burning, through my nostrils

My breath hurried, not quite right
Tongues tied
Whispers not enough to break me

she tore the heart that had lain in my palm with her withdrawl

Take me, make me dance with you, fall from you, leap through you
Make my lips drip from your sweat
Hands tremble on your thighs
There is something more to love
Less to loyalty
His hands play like children on my back
His touch inciting the nerves of my core to revolt
Now let me go, know myself
That self true to her
To you
True in you
Only with you