Life has
a way of tumbling apart when what you really want is order. Beautiful blue-eyed girls don’t give out their
love easily; you understand; she’s a Protestant, you’re a Catholic, the lexicon
of guilt is the one thing you share. So
you make concessions.
You find
someone else with blue eyes.
A quart
of home-made whisky brewed up by his best friend and you’re laughing at the
ridiculous shapes your bodies make together.
He gets maudlin after the third drink – one more means violence. You’re drunk, lonely and shockingly enraptured
– and you know he won’t tell anyone. You
cut him off with your caress.
You’re
all practiced suavity. He gives - clever
with his tongue. You don’t mind the
hardness of wide palms or the roughness of slim fingertips. A mouth feels like a mouth, and this one
doesn’t tell you you’ve gone too far.
When he screams
Laverne’s name, you’ve been too well-fucked to give a damn.
You lie
on the sticky sheets, sweat drying unpleasantly on your back. No touching.
The dead iguana sits upon his chest, staring dully, lost in some
mystical trance. You won’t meet his eyes
as they scale your chest.
You’re
still the best actor on Knapp Street, standing on the mark with an
amnesia-causing kiss. But
with him, the lines dessert you.
God, he’s
so much like her.
So you
lie together, disordered, ashamed of having used each other, scandalized by the
hope of what could be now. Missing out on the magic of your own salvation.