Backfire

Her hand didn't move in mine... Not the way I imagined it would. My fingers traced her shape: arm & wrist & lines & palm & fingers; the way they would have on a map, linking unexplored locations together in a flesh-memory. Her skin was warm milk & I wanted to drink her in until I fell asleep. Every time she met her mouth with mine, time seemed to stand still & fast-forward simultaneously. So frozen with anticipation, ecstasy; my skin was raised in goosebumps. Every follicle of hair on my body had morphed into an atomic soldier rooted so deeply to my nerves, each stood fixed at attention, shocked by the electricity of her touch. I was the hammer & she was the trigger. I was cocked, waiting for the firing of the gun of possibilities. But she couldn't pull the trigger. She just let her finger rest there, taught with silent anxiety & secret fear, though her eyes screamed with provocation... as if to test how much pressure she could squeeze the trigger with before the gun went off.

She was an illusion that made my eyes water. I had thought so much, at how & when & where, to have this time with her that I didn't realize how quickly it would go... & all I wanted was more.

More time. More time to show this cynic of love, this non-believer, that such a thing really does exist; that it's not just a verb. More time to reveal that a word hasn't yet been invented for the feeling. More time to demonstrate that the placebo fillers she'd been shoveling into the cave of her calloused heart would weigh her down like mud & rust her armor to her skin.

But each time I opened my eyes, after each kiss, the first sight was her pair of swampy green eyes... & it was I who was stuck in the mud.

c.marie