Love Bias
Sometimes, she reaches down and grabs a handful of my derrière. I laugh a nervous laugh, and she chides me.
It’s a reflex. None of my girlfriends have been so zealous in their pinching, or reveled in such an act. My laugh is one of surprise, and a good one at that.
This is what upsets her. But how should I react otherwise? I hardly consider this thin-framed body, a frail comparison to the physical conventions of a man, as being sexual or attractive.
Otherwise, she’d see me as the rest of the world sees me.
There Is No Such Thing As Love
Let me give it to you straight, straight like an arrow.
I’ve had these words stuck in my head for some time now. Lyrics from the titular Dears track I first heard in university, back when I would go home in the summer and watch The Wedge on Friday nights.
I know that’s awfully cynical to say, but I need proof that it is possible today.
I just wish I could accept that fact. I’m starting to wonder if that’s why I keep hearing the words in my head. It’s my subconscious reminding me, keeping me grounded.
It’s the same story, where guy sees girl, falls in love, and happily ever after. In between, there’s always the overused plot element of the guy winning over the girl by revealing himself and his feelings. After all, this alone is enough to win any girl over, regardless of whether she found him attractive or not, she was married or single, or he was the nerd and she was the cheerleader.
But love doesn’t exist in real life, as much as I want to believe that it does.
Not for me, anyway.
Missing Her Moments
I’m writing this in my head
somewhere between Belleville and Oshawa
as Leonard Cohen croons to me
on the stereo about missing something.
I’m trying to put this
together in verse;
it’s the only way that makes sense.
Maybe because the songs he sings are too good,
or I’m still affected by the last time I had
strep throat and we read
Susan Musgrave poems in bed.
So much for swearing
that I’ll never write like this again.
I wonder why she ends her phrases
the way she does,
about whether her titles come from
those clever little moments,
or vice-versa.
Maybe I can figure out how they do it
and I can express what it felt like to hug
her before leaving,
about how I didn’t realize how hard I was
doing it until I let go and felt her
breathe again.
She wouldn’t admit that she’d miss me
until I did it first. She had
said it more than me, last time, you see.
She had paid it forward,
now it was time for me to pay it back.
Eagle vs Shark
Eagle vs Shark is the new Postal Service.
The movie I can’t stop watching. The movie I can’t watch with anyone else.
Not because it’s painful in any way, but because it’s sacred. A movie where no one else would understand the way I see it. A reminder that I was adored once too, when someone loved me beyond limit or condition. (A memory that I need right now.)
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But I will leave you with this little song, if only for a short while. You need colours and candles in your room when you listen though, and an imagination will serve you well. Having a makeout partner and wearing a costume of your favourite animal is optional.
That is all you need to know, for this is all I can say.
Thinking Of Her
Sometimes, as I’m falling asleep, I think of her.
She’s lying on my stomach again, listening to my heart beat, hands tucked neatly under my body. Or she’s spooning me, her arm resting on the crook of my waist, with a finger drawing distracting circular lines on my chest.
Sometimes we’re in the tall grass, surrounded by colours of life with the warmth of the sun above us. A regression to a time when all I had to think about was the colour of popsicle I would have when I got home from camp. How unfair that our innocence is taken from us when we need it most.
And I lie there in bed, waiting for sleep to take me as the images lead me on.
My body telling me to let go, my mind struggling to keep her next to me a moment longer.
Your Interest In My Love
I’ve always enjoyed reading about people who are in love, but most of all when that love is unrequited. Vivid pictures painted in details about a saucy diastema, the observed ritual of walking by a certain table every day to get a cup of water for paint, an unsolicited brush against a hip. Stories about awkwardness, weakness, burning desire.
Perhaps it’s because I can relate to these experiences, or because they make me feel like I’m less alone in my own clumsy dealings with the opposite sex. Even though there are countless stories written about unrequited love, there aren’t enough. For the few of us who are “oppressed by the figures of beauty”, as Leonard Cohen calls it, nothing makes us feel better. All we can do is silently commiserate with the words of those who share themselves in this way.
When I look through my old entries, it seems like most of them are about love or a torch I carry in one way or another, and how this affects me.
And sometimes I wonder if this is the reason why people come here to read my words.
Be Still, My Heart
In the dark, our bodies fit like puzzle pieces — face in neck, crest in valley, curve in curve. I’m completely vulnerable when she lets me love her like this. She brings my guard down.
It’s the way she makes me happy without trying. The way I’m filled with tenderness every time I feel the warmth of her skin against mine. The way her existence gives me hope for the rest of the world.
If I chose to fall back on old habits and kept my distance to protect myself, I wouldn’t know this ineffable feeling. I may get hurt, but it’s worth every moment I can be next to her.
Maybe she’s right, and I’ll feel differently by the time it’s necessary. Until then, there’s no use in fighting it.
My heart never gave me a choice.
She Treads Softly
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
—He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, William Butler Yeats
She knows how much I’ve fallen for her.
And by giving her my heart in such a way, she’s sharing the burden. The last thing she wants to do is hurt me, and she thinks herself selfish for wanting to be held just so. But I know what I’m getting into. I know the risks.
There’s no point in denying ourselves the joy of what we have now. To be lying next to each other when we talk into the early hours of the day, bodies pressed against one another while the morning light washes over us, is worth any chance at being hurt. We can deal with the inevitable later.
So she treads softly, on me and my heart.
And rests her head on my chest when I hold her.
Lysergic Bliss
It’s a world where every song is a journey, every chord is more dulcet than the last, and I don’t want to, I need to dance.
It’s not a simple feeling. There’s so much to consider — new realizations, unfamiliar territory, questions of fate, unresolved proprieties, inevitable change — that it’s all a mix of emotions unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. But who says that life has to be simple? All I know for sure is that I love her, even if she doesn’t love me the same way.
And for now, I’ll wear this smile like my heart on my sleeve.
A Bittersweet Indulgence
Our bodies burn like flames in an oven, so we kick off the covers. I slip my arm around her waist and press her body close to mine. She holds my hand to her chest, fingers wrapped around fingers, legs wrapped around legs.
The morning light comes in blue and soft and subtle through the window, and the stars begin to fade.
I want to hold her like this under a tree in the summer and pass the time in her company, alive to every moment we’re together. I want to hold her like this when the cars and streets are buried under snow outside, so we may truly know what it is to be warm and comfortable. I want to run my finger along the softness of her face, so I may learn every landmark and feature, and never forget. I want to read to her my favourite books on lazy Sunday afternoons, so I can take her to where they’ve taken me. I want to feel her breath against my skin, the breath that gives her life, and me joy. I want to wake up to find she’s not away in another bed, but next to me, lost in slumber, for there can be no other such simple happiness.
This is where I’m perfectly content, lost in a moment when time has stopped and nothing else matters.
But I know it won’t last forever. She’ll soon be gone. I won’t be the one to do these things with her, the one to love her the way she was meant to be loved, the one to love her as deeply as she deserves. There’s no use in thinking about it now.
The one who inspires me to create wonderful things, to make beauty as I see it in her, so that others may share in this feeling. If I had a million words to describe her grace, it still wouldn’t be enough.
I could be sad, but I’d rather be happy instead.
So as the sun begins to rise, I indulge myself a little longer, and hold her closer before drifting off to sleep.
The Idea of Love
While my mother always made it a point to stay involved in my life (to a fault), it was never because she loved me. She’s not someone who’s emotionally intelligent enough to understand what love is.
Which is why she tries to cling to me so desperately, even when I try so vehemently to avoid her. It’s the same way that some men or women only love the idea of marriage, instead of their spouses. They’re relationships based on all the wrong reasons.
Realizing this has made me wonder; did I ever actually love my girlfriends, or did I just love the idea of love?
Love is a Bohemian Child
Quand je vous aimerai?
ma foi, je ne sais pas,
peut-être jamais, peut-être demain,
mais pas aujourd’hui, c’est certain.
One day, he discovered that she loved him just as much as the day she left, and that every new man she sought for comfort was just another attempt to replace him; he was unlike anyone she had ever met before. But there was nothing that could be done; the pain had left him cold and unmoved.
And it’s only being on both sides of such an idea that allows him to accept this.
Love is a Rebellious Bird
L’amour est un oiseau rebelle
que nul ne peut apprivoiser,
et c’est bien en vain qu’on l’appelle,
s’il lui convient de refuser
Suddenly, he came upon the realization that her beauty unintentionally entraps men, who are then led to their downfall by their own misguided ideas of love, and that he was simply another one of many. Not that it mattered anyway; to force such things is futile.
Tu ne l’attends plus, il est là!
