It's not that serious

The silence would not have been awkward if I wasn't so obviously lacking in self confidence. You were staring at me again. With that look that instinctively makes me shut up and wanna wipe the left side of my nose to check if something is hanging there.

I have, in the past brushed this feeling aside. But I couldn't this time. I was frustrated and exhausted by spending the last two hours trying not to hold your hand for fear that I had misinterpreted what ever this thing between us was. Plus you're so damn tall. Or at least tall enough to give me that damn look down your nose which makes me feel even smaller.

I turn away from you lean against my trunk and give up.
"I have no idea what to say to you anymore"

"Then I'll talk" you say. We are both silent until I look back up at you. That face you make intensifies for a moment and if I wasn't already leaning against something I would have taken a step back. But it breaks and you actually kinda smile. And I soon realize that it is really your "I want to tell you something but I'm nervous/unsure of myself/think you're totally cute" face. And that I have been seeing it for months now.

"Weeks ago you told me how you felt and when I didn't have an answer for you, you said it was alright, that you were just going to be there and that I was going to fall for you anyway?" I don't remember saying anything that cock-sure... out loud. I simultaneously mentally pat myself on the back and kick myself "You were right. I can't stop thinking about you. And I figured I should tell you before you pounced on someone else, or someone else pounces on you or I lost my nerve."

And we talked, really talked out there in that cold parking lot. You looking directly at me, being completely forward and open with me while I nervously fumbled with my keys. For a moment I wonder if this is how I made you feel when I confessed. Kinda warm and infuriatingly stupid. When you finish all I can say is that you have to use your words with me because I am neurotic. I'll learn your tells eventually but that you have to talk to me. I tell you how I wanted to wrap my arm through yours in the movie theater and you very simply say almost emotionlessly say, almost a-matter-of-factly say that I should have. Damn Vulcan.

"Well I know that I can now!!!" And I feel like I am complaining so I just reach out and hug you. I press my head against your chest and wrap my arms around you and when you put your arms around me. Both arms for the first time and brush your fingers up and down my back I understand that feeling I have been writing about since I was 13. And it's a surprise to me that in 28 years of living, in 9 years of a relationship, after experiencing several different types of touch from many different people that this is the first time I have felt this ...complete and utter relief of being safely encircled and accepted. You lean into me as much as I am leaning into you. And it feels good.

I have to pause

I have to take a deep breath and smooth my skirt
run nervous fingers through my hair 

because I feel all of an awkward anxious  16
its intoxicating and infuriating

My thoughts slip away
hungrily consumed by some sort of off beat chance

I kick my heels and squeal
I question and doubt, calculate, recalculate and then reconstruct wild theories based on a math I can not even begin to understand.

I cover my face with my hands
hiding the  embarrassment and enthrallment 

I want to cry because my confidence can not shield me as I struggle for composure
my hands burn to touch
my lips eager to taste
my head aches to understand
and my heart
irregular
remembering a rhythm of a not so distant past beats a chilled warning through my bones and at the same time a newborned  yearning cadence that courses wet and warm from hip to tit and toe to crown,

This drum song fills my ears
like a rolling ocean
I'm trapped in the wave
a frantic
a frightened
a fascinated
a fixated
16 

in the sixteen steps it takes to cross the street
reach the door
and say hello

In a little more than 72 hours I will be standing in direct defiance of every negative thing about my body that I have been taught to believe

I will take the stage in front of total strangers and fond friends;) and if you are there you will see that it will take a total of three minutes for me to stylishly remove two black gloves, one silk nighty and a black and purple laced bra.

What you will not see is the decade it has taken me to remove the limitations of self hate
What you will not see is the years I have spent removing corrosive loathing in order find my worth and self love
What you will not see is the six months it has taken me to remove that defeating fear that has told me that my dreams will never be my reality


You'll see me
just me
all of me
exactly how I was made to be

Yours Truly,
Miss Magnoliah Black

 

Friday afternoon finds me huddled on the couch, wrapped up in a blanket, fighting off a horrendous sore throat and I crying pathetically over some lame ass lifetime like movie (which shall remain nameless for my own protection).
 

I'm sick from overworking, emotionally exhausted and as I look back on it I blame the bookshelves for turning me into this hot mess. Well I blame me but it started with those damn shelves.
 

I should explain
 

 

Last Sunday at  2 in the morning I am  toiling away at these bookshelves because if I don’t get it done it won’t get done.  Now this is not a new thought for me.  In my last relationship I knew/felt that if I didn’t do it wouldn’t get did.  But there was still that glimmer of hope.

Now I’m completely alone and well without that slim optimistic sliver of “maybe he’ll…” so its all me on hands and knees at two am finishing up the last of the tool-less shelves in coffee brown from Target’s home décor  when it happens…

I flip the page and the instructions have this little triangle.  Inside of the triangle are two little sexless block people almost holding hands.   An indication that this part is a two person job. Suggesting strongly that I would need help. 

I start to cry

I decide that this is a dangerous thing to do when wielding a hammer (tool-less my ass) so after 4 or 5 tears I suck it up, brace the damn things against the wall, maneuver my body into the closest things to a split its been in since second grade ballet and get her done.

For a brief moment sanity seductively flitters past me and whispers in my ear telling me to stop.  I have been up since 6:45am the previous day, I’ve done 5 hour long massages, run a ton of errands all over town which include getting these heavy shelves, carrying them from the store to the car and the car to the house solo. 

But I’ve been working on this “Reorganize the Room” project since 6pm (the previous day),I have a UU service to attend in the morning, work in the afternoon and dinner plans in the evening so I have to finish.
 

It became a call to arms
It became a challenge
And as neurotic as it sounds it became a fucked up analogy for my life.
 

It has to be done. It has to be done now.

No one is going to help me.  I have to do it alone. 

I have to do it perfectly.    My performance is a direct reflection of me

I am not going to pussy out. 

I am strong enough.

 

I finish around 3am with everything.  My room, my closet all neat and ocdly in order.  It’s perfect and beautiful.  My shelves, my fucking shelves with the things I worked so hard for on them.
 

I’m exhausted and half insane and I laugh myself to sleep...since I refuse to cry.
 

In the morning I’m beyond fucked.
My eye’s burn, my wrist is swollen my palm is giving out sharp radiating pain, my right knee is swearing eloquently in french.
I call off service, I call off work but I still try to limp around the house and do chores with my left hand disadvantage.  Since I can’t manage to lift more than 5 lbs with my right.

I blame the shelves ( and not me) all the way…. It’s a long day.  And at this point I am working just because my body doesn’t know what to do with itself or how to stop.  It’s a relief when 6pm comes around because I have to call a truce with myself to get ready for dinner.
 

He shows up. 

This guy.  A friend I have known for almost two years now and he takes me to dinner.  No strings attached, no expectations, just friends and it’s really nice.  And when he pulls up to my house I ask him inside to look to see my shelves cause I am so proud of them.
 

And he looks at them
       And says they are nice
And he looks at my wrist
       And asks why I didn’t ask him for help
 

 

I look at him as Muddy waters I Just Wanna Make Love to You sings out from
the cd player on the bottom of one of the shelves in front of us.
 

I really look at him
I do want to make love to him.

For some reason I believe that this guy would have helped me build my shelves stat and he would have done it correctly.  It’s crazy…is the passing thought I have as tears form in my eyes .   This is insane I think as he holds me tightly against him and tells me to let go.  To just let go.  I cry and sob and apologize and swear as he holds the world still around me.  And that song on my shelf is singing into my soul
 

 

 

Now I’m fucked. 

Because as I lay there listening only to his heart beat, feeling his hand moving across my hair I looked over at my perfect shelves that I worked so hard on.  Then deeper still  I looked at my life and everything in it. 

And in that moment, and breath, and beat, held tight within his arms I realize with shocking, startling and paralyzing clarity  just how fucking tired I am, how completely and  utterly exhausted I am

 

 

 

of building it alone~