| Nerve Endings Lindsay Kaplan |
You noticed that I wore the same bra everyday. The black cotton one with the wire tucked in under the cups. I have so many others, lacy ones with thin straps, balconet push up bows, and obscene satin numbers that hug my ribs. But I like the black cotton one. It doesn't itch, and the wire doesn't slouch miserably when I arch my back. You never asked me to wear the other tight, sexy bras. You said I looked sexy in the plain one. You stroked my collarbone with your fingers and draped your thumbs on the inside of my neck. You look beautiful, you told me. Maybe this was your love for me. I don�t know what love is, but I know what it isn't. The way Chopin arpeggios creep down my throat; that is not love. It is not how you held me, like a jigsaw puzzle, like nuclear fusion. It is not whispered lullabyes drowned in pillow cases. It is not nerve endings. Not the way we would drive, this was not love. I went too fast, your conversation was too slow. But I did lefts and rights, and you did norths and souths. Easts and wests got us lost, sending us hours off course. We kissed in stop and go traffic, with my left eye open, while you tried to sneak a hand southwards. In March, we drove into the sunrise that had slowly began to settle over Boston, blooming in the pale gray stew of the city. You took my hand, to hold it or to prevent me from falling asleep. "Baby," you said to me, passed out on your bed one drunken night. You brought my contact case over, held it up to my nose, so I wouldn't wake up with dry eyes. "Baby, your eyes." So I shed each lens, and curled up with your pillow. You sat in your chair for a while, I felt your eyes trained on me as I slept. You unfolded my dreams and took polaroids to paste in your scrapbooks. When the photos developed, a collapsed girl took the place of golden mirages, and you were dissapointed. Love is not Saturday afternoon omelets with red bliss home fried potatoes. It is not roses on Valentines Day, or the leaves we fell in, or the sheets we slept in. Love is not our hands cupped around our eyes when we kissed. Love is not freckles, it is not flesh. When the waitress at Joseph's finally brought us the check, you insisted on analyzing it. It was twenty-seven dollars, so we decided to leave thirty-two. You said, I will leave ten dollars and you will leave twelve. I said, no, I will leave seventeen and you need to leave three dollars for tip and put twelve on your Visa. And you snapped. Stop interrupting me, you seethed under you breath, I want to figure it out by myself. But I already got it, I said. It doesn't matter, you snarled, just shut up. I knew you are slower than me, and I didn't have the patience to deal with you. You lost your temper when I interrupted you, because you got flustered and upet. I got insensitive and rude. I rolled my eyes too much at you. But when you didn't hold the door for me, I hated you, and when you didn't even offer to pay for my breakfast at Joseph's, I controled my urge to kick you under the table. You constantly bummed cigarettes from me and fed me lied about quitting. You flirted with other girls right in front of me. Sometimes when you came before me and passed out on my arm, I wanted to rip it off. Now that you are gone I crave your arm. Just your arm. My love for you is mud, soft feet, and stupidity. It is a chunk of bitter-sweet chocolate with the middle hollowed out. When our bodies were pressed together, nothing mattered. We were two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Only two, but together we made one piece of a sky. We stayed together because we didn't know what else to do. You said you were afraid that you'd never find anyone you can kiss like me. I know. I was worried that I would never fit the way I fit with you. Baby, I don't even know what love is. If you are not the one, I said, you are my five. And I didn't know if I was ready to throw away my five. Not yet, I wasn't. |