to the man with the hands, this isn’t directed at you at all

Things That Make Me Feel Better About My Business Plan #23.

There is a thing that men do that I like. They place their hands directly on my hips, thumbs across my belly, as if to make a frame for my body as something they appreciate as beautiful. None of the women I’ve been with have ever done this. It seems an action restricted to gender or gender roles. The girls I’ve been with were very much girls. They had me lead when we danced, they would put their hand into mine. It didn’t matter that I was younger and my tongue stumbled. I had to be taller, I had to be stronger. Puzzling over this difference this morning, this small, tiny thing, I remembered today how, when I was a gymnast gunning for the circus, my class would practise handstands on each other’s hips. A completely different thing, but with almost the same placement of fingers and palms. Such a small thing, such a tiny thing.

Postmarks now has a permanent home on the web at http://takemewithyou.org.

It’s my surprise that it remains a nice gesture that catches in my mind and keeps my thoughts pinned like a butterfly to a cork. I’ve been violated by indiscriminate affection to the point where I’m terrified of kindness, because it lies more effectively. At first I only felt like I had swallowed stones that ached. Every day they ground me into sand, separating every cell into something that was less than it was, until finally the pressure of repeated unfaithfulness began to compress my unhappiness into a new substance, something hard that coats the inside of my skin and helps me grow bitter. It ages me, steals my fire, my wonder, and simmers with black depressive anger, but it protects me from treachery. I’m caught needing what I’ve locked out in self-defence. I hate my lessons, engrained through wretched repetition, that want cheapens, that desire is as shallow and common as injustice and just as fun.

It’s a beautiful day for global warming.

Watching my reactions, where words don’t trespass, I see where they flare up like temper at every taste of hope, striking me like a physical blow, dragging a corrosive stain to taint every thought. I try to close my ears, I try not to apply my disillusion, but I don’t know that I’m wrong anymore. I’ve been gambling years for someone to be an exception.

Lucky this gives me more focus on my project, hey? Yeesh. Which, by the way, is still progressing. I’ve been quiet here because I’ve been too busy to take time out to write anything that isn’t related to Heart of the World. (Which is still getting about 100 new hits a day). I took some time out to post tonight mostly because I don’t have to go to my day-job tomorrow and I felt I could spare twenty minutes. Tomorrow, not so much. Tomorrow I get this sucker clean. We have until December 8th to raise 35,000$CAN.