Typical Slut: Staying Beyond The Night, Floating Beyond Our Bodies

I want to be worn like a cloak by someone—my body wrapped around their shoulders, warming their soul. Silk on skin. I want to be understood. Buoyant. Floating. Moon close, dark waters, violet orisons. But, dating is a nightmare and it obstructs desire, as my cravings and hopes sink. And, I wake up.

Buried false gold, bad dreams and the bitter distance of the past haunts me.

Men disappoint me right away, and then, I play the action out to see where the scenes go, like I’m composing the score of my dreams. Being a voyeur of my own life is my romantic downfall.

It’s trouble. Big trouble. Panicked lust and curiosities keep me awake at night. And, I want sweet dreams—to sleep beside someone. Bodies, unencumbered by pain, suering, pasts...

I crave intimacy more than sex, yet I still want all the pleasure. Life as a dream. The dreams of lunar honesty.

I’m always thirsty—for the sea. Salty tides, in my mouth.

My heart is a wilderness—an ocean too deep. I am not an easy girl and I am an even more complex woman. Not because I want to be, but because I am.

In intimacy, my desire is my fear. My bitterness is my sweetness. My confusion is my madness. My joy is my love is my downfall...vulnerability. My life has been in tatters—torn silks. Everything about it has been up and then down. Mercurial. And? Beyond it all, the traumas I experienced thread through my heart like laces, tough laces, encasing me and holding me and threatening penetration.

But, I want to be sewn to the sea—threaded pearls, enrapturing me.

Sex to me means everything. When I cum, I divulge all.

There’s divinity between bodies and we are more than just bodies, you know? We are all more than just bodies. The ether connects us, we are fallen and risen—separated by skin—the sin of mortality. This skin, this thin skin...flesh is heavenly, yet bodies keep us apart. Separate, always alone, even in union.

How close may I get? What is the boundary? Of love? Of skin? Of desire?

To sleep beside someone is the truest sleep. Bodies, touching—or, not touching.

We are enraptured in dreams, safe, beyond skin, in touch with our lives, though we have left them. The dream space is the holy space—the only place I want to be. With you, beside you, until you come unto me...

Yet, intimacy—true intimacy—scares me. It’s hard for me to sever lust from love, sex from intimacy. Romance.

The romance of it all? And, being doomed by my nature? It’s the embodiment of experience; the corporeal question.

Just skin and flesh, and under it all—bones. Nerves to tie the feelings together, blood to keep me moving...a heart?

Sleeping and dreaming. Eyes closed. Or, awake.

But, what is spirit? My moods, moving like the ocean waves of my feelings, as one man once told me.

The tides...

Before he ran away. Because, I was too much.

Too much. Too much. Always too much. These words pound within me, as my heels click-clack down Burnside, because I am always on the same street, you know? Always in the middle of the city. Split in between, like the meeting of my legs—the edge of the horizon. The river, leading to the sea, past the concrete and the city.

And, in the city last night, I met a man...

We had been talking for a while and I could tell that he was kind from these words. But, I never know pure attraction, until I’m up close, where the center of our past memories mingle with sweat and I can smell fear, hormones, death and desire. The stained glass and pains of pleasure. The church of bodies. The waves and the moon.

The threads of our shadows touched and light reflected in our eyes. We looked away from each other at first, because it was too much. But, the night went on and we wandered, the moon unclouded and he came back to my place.

Because we communicated about boundaries and desire beforehand, I felt present. Being a survivor is a serious thing. Meeting potential lovers thrills me, but I sometimes check out.

I need a heart with an anchor and he was willing to stay the night...and, just hold me.

I need someone who can be there for me, if we’re just roots without the stones when it all falls apart—because, it always does. And, who will pick up the pieces? Let us dream...let us dream.

Meeting him was beautiful. Lying next to him afterward. Dreams instantly ushered through me with the scent of nighttime lullabies—flowers opening after midnight. Luscious petals.

To dream beside someone is more intimate for me than anything. It is a trust thing, and for my insomnia heart, the thing I fear the most.

Insomnia. Each night, I struggle with the rising light, that each night I will be up...forever.

I weep when I’m still awake when the morning birds call and sing. My dream of love haunts me, and the absence of love haunts me even more. Love—or, the lack thereof—is a pale ghost who tarnishes and scratches the window panes, like rattling vindictive branches. Love tackles me, grasping at my heart, my lungs, chest, ribs—like an open cage for death.

Capsizing...capsizing...capsizing. The possibilities are endless. The sea is deep.

In the night, in the scent of him, I did not feel the murky fear, the choppy waves, the abrasive storms...I did not feel the squall of anxiety, waves of panic, the undertow.

I could trust in our bodies. And, I slept.

Beside him at dawn, my skin was calm in the gauzy-gray shadows. I floated, watching his half-lit closed eyes and warm rose lips. I knew he needed those sweet dreams, too. And, I knew I needed them even more.

To be had and be held is the sleepiest, dreamy-dream. Waking beside you, I felt the moon’s glow—pearlescent and luminous. The morning daybreak shued in the city, but I still felt rustling sands and the ebb and tide of you.

In our bodies, beyond our bodies—the ritual of rest— I felt the ritual of my skin shutting down and moving beyond. And, into you. And...beyond.