Sunday, March 29, 2009

An Open Page by Carly-Jay Metcalfe

It is written on the body. It is written in my sex. I wait for you to turn the page so we can begin.

We are in a safe place. A place where the wind stops so the world can listen. Flocks of birds rumble overhead, their dollops of shit raining on the roof while I sit on an afternoon, shouldering the silence.

*

The afternoon is as wet as my sex. In the morning and in the night I bind my legs around your thickly fleshed waist, my calves coming to rest on your warm back. I cannot seem to get you deep enough inside me so I hoist my knees up level with my shoulders while my lower legs drape over your shoulders just as the floppy neck of a dead goose would hang from a hunters hands. I pull them closer still and you know I need more of you – all of you – for in the darkness, I belong to your shadow.

Bone and muscle settle into the rhythm of sex. It is not a comfortable or reliable rhythm and this excites me. My spine arches as our swollen groins smash together with some strange grace. Skins slide up, down and across and the slapping of skin on skin is a familiar thud – like a thick rubber band flicking on your belly.

You cradle my body like a mother would a child in the water. I worry that I need you more than you need me and a sadness clots on my tongue in our humid intimacy. I sink my fingers into my wetness, then bring them to my face. I want to get drunk on the scent of our juices before you leave which makes me think that my survival rests on yours. Sundays make the body feel heavy and alone, but you would be a welcome strain, so drink from the cup of tonight so we can tumble into tomorrow.

*

Damp towels hang from doorknobs but like a feather on the wind or a prayer without a god, it matters not. There’s a sky out there filled with good intentions and strife that could swallow us.

You could shoot the sun out of the sky and I would still want you.

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