lack

She feels the lack of him accutely. They have agreed to remain friends. Still she sees him across a crowd and feels as if a part of her has been torn out, her chest aches. She might be sick. This life without him feels like a cancer growing or worse, an organ removed. From the intensity of the pain she knows that she has given too much of herself already. She has been depleted by the relationship. All that has been removed is the sex, and yest, still friends, she feels like a pale imitation of herself. The watches him chat and flirt, so charming, with other girls. She knows the signs, the turn of his head, the sweet trip in his words, the boyish vulnerability. She feels like he has taken a part of her with him, her confidence, her quick wit. She will need to take these things back for herself. She looks around at a room bereft of anyone who might interest her. How many of these people will she sleep with, how many harts will she devour before she feels that part of her that is missing begin to grow once more?

Reading as part of the work

What you read impacts on what you write. I know this is true from long hard struggles through the mire of mediocre writing. In the middle of reading a book which is fine. Good. Probably. Some people have called it good, and yet the writing is so flat and ordinary that I can feel all the inspiration been sucked out of me by the porous paper and the ink that is on it. What you read must be better than what you are writing. Some times this is difficult to achieve. You emerge, breathless from a book and know that you will never reach these dizzying heights. Still, reaching up towards them is good for your craft. This week I am stuck. This week I am in the middle of that average book that is possibly quite good. The writing plods and suddenly I am struck by the idea that I will only ever be as good as this thing I am reading now, this limp piece of prose that others seem to like. Find me something that flies. Find me a vessel to lift my own words off the ground or perhaps I will wallow here forever without any lift at all.

lost things

Looking down across the length of her flat belly it is impossible not to compare. We are different in so many ways, her skin and mine, her long lean torso, the sweet concave expanse just above her pubic bone. She is as I had imagined her, of course, because this dream is something cobbled together from my imaginings. In dream I stretch my arm out across her belly, little chest. I have always been happy with the swell of my own breasts, and now her tight small breasts seem perfect. I pluck the nipple up in between my lips, sweet cherry, pink as fruit. I must have a body of my own because I feel the desire swelling in it, but my body does not feature in the slow slide across her flesh, the heady scent of her sex, the lips parting and my tongue lost in the dampness there.
It has been so long since a dream like this has found me and I wallow in it. Perhaps I will come whilst sleeping, my mouth spasming in a synchronised dance with her own palpitations. I would wake with my back arched and the warm glow spreading through my skin.

The disturbance in the dream irritates me. I would rather dip my head further down, slip my tongue inside her where my finger has opened the path. I would rather follow this slow climb than bother with the visitors who turn up in the house with their noisy play, spilling pins on the floor that stick in my socks, making a mess in the pool with spilled pages. I drag myself away from her cunt in irritation and attempt to calmly clean up the mess that they make. When I wake there is that same feeling of dissatisfaction, an orgasm approached but lost to the tumult of a new day.

I am back

I never once begrudged the six flights of stairs. I opened the door to the little loft apartment and there was the sky to greet me, a rainy afternoon in Paris and all the buildings looking so beautiful. The isolation of not knowing the language, the freedom this gives you to stare out at the world, freed suddenly from the need to participate. The two of us speaking English to each other and the intimacy that can be found when there is no one else to distract you from your love.

The storm rolled in and sleet found its way through the windows that turned their open mouths to taste the sky. I snapped them shut and we held each other listening to thunder, leaning against each other to save us from the sudden cold. A storm. Rain that obscured the breathtaking beauty of a city that was still a stranger. The newness of this place giving a new texture to the familiarity of your skin. A stretching out on a stranger's couch. Our shared history was the only thing that remained familiar and as such it seemed more beautiful to lie with you.

The owners of the appartment were men. Gay men we surmised, mainly because of the books, the shoes, the toiletries, the impecably styled ornaments. Making love on the couch of these faceless men, making love in their bed. The mirror that reflected our bodies. Knowing that they would have looked in this mirror to see themselves gorgeous in their skin. I avoided even a glance in that mirror but I saw you looking and it made me happy to know that in your eyes I was something to be looked at, something to be devoured with all of your senses.

Twenty years later we made love in Paris.

I wonder, way back then, drunk on that first night, if you had any thought for such a future, or if, just like in Paris, you only had eyes for me, naked in your arms.