Dad walks out the motel door.
Like my mother, five years before, only now I’m fully alone
with two little babies sleeping at my side.
It's no longer a baby, but a thing named “child” that lives behind my ribs, my eyes, my fingertips. Dirty toenails. My feet slide across the comfortless duvet.
He gave me a warning, before he left.
“You're in charge until I get back,” is the only part I hear, now.
I am the leader.
I look at the remote. Hold it in my hand, like a beautiful weapon. The freedom to disobey. The chance for my own definition of obedience. Then. Then I take it.
The TV is on.
The woman on screen, she is in charge. She stands, leans over a man, stares into his hidden eyes.
Like my mother, five years before, only now I’m fully alone
with two little babies sleeping at my side.
It's no longer a baby, but a thing named “child” that lives behind my ribs, my eyes, my fingertips. Dirty toenails. My feet slide across the comfortless duvet.
He gave me a warning, before he left.
“You're in charge until I get back,” is the only part I hear, now.
I am the leader.
I look at the remote. Hold it in my hand, like a beautiful weapon. The freedom to disobey. The chance for my own definition of obedience. Then. Then I take it.
The TV is on.
The woman on screen, she is in charge. She stands, leans over a man, stares into his hidden eyes.
Into my eyes. She drops to her knees.
She runs her hands, up from his calves, up from my calves, to his knees, to inner thighs. A light touch, warm face, a writhing bodily lie as fluent as the night clerk’s smile. A flower begins to blossom in my belly, nourished by the lighthearted promise.
I’m eating it up.
Go for it.
Perform.
Bravery shines through her vulnerable position: lower than, only to rise up with the reins. Her fingers plod to the edges of a metal mesa.
I'm sick with the anticipation she’s fed me. An instant addiction to the dramatic pause. Waves of enflamed patience flow over my lima bean-body as my love deepens and spreads. Slowly she will widen the chasm, until his character, The Slavish Beast, with full sensationalism emerges onto the stage. And it does.
Now I know.
Know that my parents never lived here, in my own suddenly uncomplicated flesh.
Sitting on a nonplussed mattress, their convoluted claim of innocence divorces me.
It was an inevitable leak.
Inevitable infatuation.
And what is inevitable has to reach backward and forward in time.
It turns out, small child, I’d always known the things they kept from me. And I’d always loved to know.
This is the realm of growing children, constantly growing. Your sensual sex lives on your skin, as plainly as the suit crafted to hide it.
As a child, you were cocooned in bland intricate friendships.
How naked it feels under your civility.
She runs her hands, up from his calves, up from my calves, to his knees, to inner thighs. A light touch, warm face, a writhing bodily lie as fluent as the night clerk’s smile. A flower begins to blossom in my belly, nourished by the lighthearted promise.
I’m eating it up.
Go for it.
Perform.
Bravery shines through her vulnerable position: lower than, only to rise up with the reins. Her fingers plod to the edges of a metal mesa.
I'm sick with the anticipation she’s fed me. An instant addiction to the dramatic pause. Waves of enflamed patience flow over my lima bean-body as my love deepens and spreads. Slowly she will widen the chasm, until his character, The Slavish Beast, with full sensationalism emerges onto the stage. And it does.
Now I know.
Know that my parents never lived here, in my own suddenly uncomplicated flesh.
Sitting on a nonplussed mattress, their convoluted claim of innocence divorces me.
It was an inevitable leak.
Inevitable infatuation.
And what is inevitable has to reach backward and forward in time.
It turns out, small child, I’d always known the things they kept from me. And I’d always loved to know.
This is the realm of growing children, constantly growing. Your sensual sex lives on your skin, as plainly as the suit crafted to hide it.
As a child, you were cocooned in bland intricate friendships.
How naked it feels under your civility.
