I Who Have Tried to Know Men
Beware of being trapped in your own imaginings. You install sparks in others, you charge them with your illusions, and when they burst forth into illuminations, you are taken in.
It is quintessential you fascinate me in alluring and authentic ways. Fascinate me through your ideas, your intellect and your creativity. Fascinate me by the way you conduct yourself and how you choose to live. Fascinate me with your sense of humour and that feeling when you kiss my head before we fall asleep. Demand my attention by being the person I simultaneously want to do nothing ever again and absolutely everything with.
Don’t let the fascination be because I cannot figure you out. Fascinate me with entirely indestructible trust.
In a rare occurrence we remain fully clothed. You smile, affectionately, with just a hint of inquisition, place a kiss on my forehead and find comfort on your back. If I want to retain the closeness then I must adjust my position; lean in, shape myself to the contours of your side, place my head on your chest. A faux closeness I have manufactured through proximity. In this very precise moment I could smile until my cheeks hurt and cry until I no longer breathe.
I am filled with an intense longing. Some may say words render it indescribable. This longing exists within the depths of my being and has been searching for an outlet for endless weeks, turned to months, turned to years. This longing is akin to the longing felt when one experiences the passing of a loved one from this world into what we so readily assume is the next. This longing is the promise of coffee in the morning. It is waiting for that warm breeze on the hottest day of the year. It is the longing for clarity when you awake from a nightmare. The longing for a reply to that question it took all your courage to ask. It is longing for your arms around me, and mine around you. It is longing to touch your face, run fingers along the bridge of noses and across lids atop heavy eyes. It is longing to become entwined, for limbs to get confused and the bed to become too warm. It is longing to meet your lips with mine.
When you touch me, it feels as if my world is caving in. I logically know it will not; but that’s the way it feels. It’s confusing how this can be so pleasurable yet so melancholy. The intensity of feeling is almost apocalyptic, like the whole world is about to collapse in on itself, a giant black hole with us at the centre. The time we spend together is entirely real yet completely surreal. You took me out of my everyday yet firmly rooted me in it through simple animal impulse. The physical sensations you stimulate are cataclysmic, extraordinary, utterly euphoric. I feel the most myself I ever have yet at the same time, a version of me surfaces that only exists in these moments.
A version of me that has surrendered the capacity to engage in measured and sensible decision making.
A version of me that you always perceived to be perfect; a dangerous adjective that fills its recipient with anxiety, dread and an ideal they will never truly be able to live up to.
This is a tale of walking, talking, fucking contradictions. When we talk, sit together on my sofa, on an epic comedown from heavy breathing and sweaty sheets I feel infinitely ordinary and content. My mind wanders, not away from you or our reality, but to possibilities that may or may not come to light. I believe, and I hear my own voice inside my head give life to this affirmation, that deep down we want the same things. Or perhaps this is just blissful, wishful thinking; a clouded idea conjured in the midst of the hazy leftovers of a passionate ecstasy. I can never be the way I am with you with anyone else. No one else has ever come close to inspiring such emotion or devotion. I cried more than once with you; not in sadness yet also not in joy, just in feeling in that moment. A timeless, unreal moment.
It was this land of blurred boundaries I still inhabited when we met. I knew it served no purpose, except one, yet I still found the idea of letting it go tormenting. I relinquished it though, for you, until one day I chose not to.
I slept with my ex one last time before him and I were officially official. I tell myself I did not mean to do it, but I did. I never have sex without intention. I asked him over to help with a DIY problem but really I wanted to check how much influence I still had. He saw right through it; this was irrelevant to me. His willingness to engage in this scenario made me decide my influence was still considerable and, as I was unable to get you to sleep with me, I used this as an opportunity to remind myself I was desirable. That’s why I did it, out of frustration and spite and basic human insecurity.
It wasn’t even good, which is a shame, because that had been something we were consistently good at. That last time, it was just straightforward. Nothing intimate, the job simply done. This relationship had been rooted in lust; sometimes it was desperate and fast and we would only make it as far as the stairs and sometimes it was prolonged and agonising and we would spend hours drifting in and out of touch and taste until we saw the first vestiges of morning light hitting the window and we knew we had a tiresome day ahead.
We stared at each other silently. He washed his hands and held my gaze as he dried them, comfortable in my kitchen like nothing had ever changed. He asked if I’d really invited him round to move the washing machine.
I said yes.
There was a moment, just a slight one, of hesitation before I was wrapped in his embrace and we were kissing. Interestingly, we rarely started with a kiss; he preferred to go straight in, removing any barriers amidst skirts and dresses, the fabric eventually nestling in around my waist. He would grab my hips and pull me to the edge of the bed, eye-level; his preferred preliminary kiss with its failsafe effect.
This last time though, we barely spoke and he didn’t stick around and that was fine. He lived around the corner, let himself out with me watching him cut through the ginnel from my bedroom window. It was unlike all the other times, indicative of the fact we had finally used each other up.
I fall in love with the idea of a person. I cling to an aspect of their character and I nurture it; I build around it. I watch it grow and I feed my denial. Falling in love is the most terrifying thing in the world. Falling in love with the idea of someone is one of the easiest. Reprogramming yourself so you no longer subscribe to that idea: one of the hardest. Love; its subtleties, its elation and its crushing oblivion is the most wonderful feeling and it is the most vulnerable you will ever be. If you are doing it right.
I have tricked myself into false representations of love. The love I have experienced has grown out of my ability to morph myself into versions that exist for that particular person. I have not allowed myself authenticity. I will get caught in the excitement of people sharing their immaculate, true selves with me and I find that intimate, scary and fascinating. I have not been fair; I have not allowed anyone to get caught in the excitement of my immaculate, true self. The person who wants to have adventures and experience crazy, heart-stopping joy. The person who wants to navigate the world on her own terms and immerse herself in all there is to offer. I want to read books and share ideas and have someone sweep me off my feet; not in some stereotypical, grand gesture but rather through the intimacy of them allowing me to be entirely and honestly me.
I want to feel the fear of those early days of falling; when oblivion is always in your peripheral vision. When your heart aches in the same way as when it is breaking but on entirely different terms. But I also know that when this time comes again, I will have to be wary. I will give the entirety of myself to someone else and will fail to realise that I often leave nothing for myself. My writing will start to dissipate, come in second to reality as you become enveloped in routine. There is no need to write of love when you are experiencing it, although that may be the most sensible time to do so.
He said I could only write like that, with imaginative intensity, because I had not lived out what I was writing about, that the living-out kills the imagination and the intensity, as happens to him.
Both quotations in this piece are taken from Anais Nin’s Henry and June.