Sense Memory

Looking into their eyes brings the calm of a hushed spring rain, where somehow the rest of the world fades away, the air feels cool to the brush of your fingertips,

And all that’s left are those casually confident pools of grey green, watching you, in your pulsing, visceral want. Not-quite-predator-stalking-prey.

You know they can see it.

They’ve caught you before. Watching when you weren’t supposed to. Fascinated by the way they unapologetically straddle their seat, shoulders, arms, pelvis, god, everything about them screaming sex, declaring their power, and you can’t look away. You don’t want to.

I’ve never wanted anyone the way that I desire you,

As an ache that burns hot and hungry in my belly, clambering to the back of my throat, threatening to spill out and dribble down to my fingertips. They’re equal parts witty and wise; they want to be a farmer, steady, solid, earthy, real, strong. So tangible I can already feel the heat radiating from their muscular shoulders underneath the imagined explorations of my greedy fingertips. Safe and unimaginably dangerous all at once.

If it was just lust – just the sight a tool belt slung low across your hips, a rough, red flannel, and whitewash jeans, as the sunset flecked your hair and your eyes caught mine, crossing that intersection for just a moment – instead of your hair wet from shower and hanging in your eyes, begging to be brushed back, all tucked into a white hoodie, you curled up on my couch and interested in my rant on Oklahoma!, words spilling out too fast to stop, the too much version of my zigzagging brain peeking out.

But you, you lean in, and I can practically taste the too clean scent of your almost spicy shampoo. I want you. To bind my hands up tight to the headboard and fuck me hard into the mattress. You, I would let myself trust. As if you have the power to soothe old wounds with your calloused hands, rewrite imprinted pain with a thrust of your hips; take care of me tenderly.

But this pain is woven into my center, uncurable, automatic.

How could you want this broken body, discarded, used, trembling. Terrified of your touch but eager to be devoured.

You told me about the others, honest from the start. I was the cheat, I just wanted to be yours, I never learned how to say please, I can become whatever you need me to be, what I want can stay hidden away, where it belongs.

She is beautiful, effortlessly stylish, graceful. Always dressing up our friends in her mix and match of a wardrobe so splendid and soft and shiny that I want her to dress me, too. For just a taste. She dances, laughing, in the middle of the crowd, while I hang back by the edge. The exact kind of person they really want, and I will never be.

to panic and surrender, watch it all wash away keeps me safe on the outskirts. They would have seen everything, the messy ugliness itching under the skin, twisted hips and clenching muscles and a body so afraid to let go. Expecting the hurt. What if I don’t measure up? How can I be enough? That it will end up as unwanted as it’s always been.

The everything that they are, the warmth of their laugh & their unexpected softness, too precious to soil. You tuck away the memories of clowns & oranges, as yours to keep.

A reminder that you are more than the smattering of scars others left behind.