Measurements

I am testing the space between his jaw and his shoulder, measuring with the modified arc built of my forehead nose and lips to see if I fit there.

Along the landscape of a longer neck that fit upon a broader collarbone, one that usually smelled of bread and cigarette smoke and sometimes of sheets and soap, I had once found a hollow that held my cheek and my closed eyelids and my hair-draped forehead against it as a cradle held its charge; that is, dutifully and gently.

The space is smaller, though, on this one. His jaw is in the middle of my forehead, my chin rests on the plain of his chest. I think I can fit here, though; I can imagine getting comfortable with this uncomfortable position. After all, crossing the street, opening the front door, embracing, kissing-- at different, earlier points in my life I didn't like to do those things, either; and all still hold their small and thus insidious elements of danger and risk.

His hands aren't much bigger than mine, and he wants to hold me in them. They get clammy fast, with too much touching, and I let go to spare him the embarassment of realizing this for himself. I know exactly what to do and what to say, which words and expressions to deliver in how many doses to make him sufficiently desirous, to make him feel sufficiently at ease. I am overestimating him in order to feel like less of a predator--he must know my game. (This conclusion, of course, is irrational. He doesn't even know me. He wouldn't know a game from the most genuine sentiment. He is nothing to me; I could be anything to him.)

But at some point, I didn't play and I didn't know, either. I took it slow and did it by intuition, by touch, by moving slowly, uncertain day by uncertain week, feeling my way through and closing my eyes when hoping not to come up short or overshoot. I wrote pages filled and overflowing with those innocent expressions of first infatuation; I wrote and deleted and saved countless emails; I waited for him to emerge and I waited for him to leave. I couldn't control anything. It brought about the best sort of inexact and overwhelming and satisfying love--slowly built by serendipity after serendipity. I can't hope for it again, so I won't. I won't wait for the shoulder that's just right; he's come and gone. I could settle for this. I could settle for a little bit smaller, a little safer, a little more sterile. I can't adapt, I can squeeze in like I belong here. There's no infatuation to swell me up and give me away; there's no uncontrollable desire to make these lips move in ways I don't want. This could be safe; this could be right by decree.

But decree leads to repression; safety leads to curiosity; I will balloon with guilt and longing for nothing in particular.

This is bullshit, dude. Can't do it.