IN BARE FEET, WITHOUT A BRA & IN THE WETTEST JEANS

I liked being naked and swimming away from you, leaving you alone, dressed at the foot of that tree. I wanted the river to carry me so far...but I wanted to be able to see you. I wanted to know what it would feel like to breathe water, to drown, and just as much I wanted to know what it would feel like to be you. I wanted to know whether you wanted to float in the river and touch the deep rocks with your hands, and how badly? And if this wasn't what you wanted, then what was?

I liked driving away from you too. In bare feet, without a bra, and in the wettest jeans, still carefully rolled to my knees. I am under a spell...and so I try to break away. You have an ability, without trying, without even knowing I think, to stir something very powerful in me. When I am with you, it is as though I have been turned inside out. And so, the deepest, most sensitive places are suddenly exposed to bright daylight and stimulated beyond measure, by just a simple breeze. This is exciting...but almost too much so...almost too bright. And so I want to swim away.

And then you are gone. I am here with myself and you are almost always gone. My body doesn't know the trick of turning itself inside out...and so I am stuck tapping a magic wand which does nothing at all. The spell is broken, the chariot is a pumpkin.

If your saxophones could feel, I would understand it. I feel exactly that way. Like an instrument and when your air blows through me I sing as though under a spell. And when you are done, I am a piece of metal tucked away safely in a dark, soft case.

I have my own talents, my own spells of course. When I write, when I paint, my body sings then too. But it is very different, because in that case I am in control. I am self-sufficient, entirely independent and free. The composition is my own. But not so with you. You really fill me with something new that I cannot generate on my own. You move me and make my spirit do things that it only does for you. I want to dive into the water and float away from you, (because I know that you will not follow me.) I want to rebel against you and this spell you have over me.

And of course, I want also to swim upstream towards you. I want to change my mind and catch back up to you at the foot of the tree before you leave me behind. I want to rise half-naked out of the river and invent some kind of spell of my own over you.

______



the love letter collection
submitted 11:54 AM EST
Wednesday, December 14, 2011