We sat feet tucked under, beneath a dusty starless sky. I
braided your fingers and you played your beat on my ribs – or was it my knees?
1 2 3 4 5 6, 1 2 3 4 5 6. To the beat of six you said, and I couldn’t quite
hold it. Rhythms are hard, I said. But you were just swaying to it, you said,
feeling the wiggle of my toes in your belly through layers of jacket and
inners.
Why were you leaning in on me like that? It’s not very
platonic, I said later, feeling slightly displaced and awkward, shifting on my
axis ever so slightly. Away not closer. Gravity is a hard fact of life and
defying it takes volumes of reserve and experience.
Not at all, you uttered, genuinely shocked because your
youth allows you to be confused about such things. We’re just chilling. I have
a girlfriend. She’s a dentist, you know.
I know. I said. And I’m a writer. An underconfident plumber
of words. And once you are done chilling platonically, drumming on my knees,
your warm hand leading my cold fingers in the dark, and my innards have been patted
and thrummed into a ripened persimmon, you may take your leave to get your fucking
teeth probed.
***
I’m so angry with you, duck. None of this would happen if
you’d just play along with physics.
9 comments:
This idea of word plumbing is intriguing. It must be interesting to be a physicist.
Wow. There's a lot going on here. Came over from Ben Ditty and as I hardly know you, can't tell if this is fiction. But Wow. Well written and I feel this tension between physical touch and spoken word. They are gringing against each other and making dust clouds that change the opacity of truth. I'd be mad too I think.
Well. It’s complicated. And really, isn’t fiction mostly what happens in some elsewhere place? A heart. A head. A silken hammock of cobwebs.
No, I’m not angry at the sweet finger tapping rhythm-keeper. I’m angry at duck, because duck thinks gravity is a matter of hearsay because duck has had duck’s head up a dark narrow place far too long for any sort of coherent understanding of physic-al things. And that’s why duck’s gravity though it aggressively consumes you, is perennially caught in an enormous magnetic field of delusional self-restraint that keeps duck’s head permanently collapsed inward arse-up and duck’s pull barely contained in a fucking chastity belt, while you’re bumping around – half drawn and quartered against your will – letting all kinds of things interfere with your orbit.
But thank you Wine and Words. And welcome here. :-)
Gravity is a hard fact of life and defying it takes volumes of reserve and experience.
Love that line. Totally relate...Infact you wrote the post for me, if I can be ever so self-centered! But then that is what an underconfident plumber of words wants doesn't she? A connection with the reader.
P, indeed i did. write it for you, that is. how could I not, when you've read me so well? ;-) that's exactly what she wants, this underconfident plumber.
I'm glad I'm back on these pages, even if you seem to be taking some time off from here.
I'm going to mooch that gravity line and use it on someone soon.
Zap, a love interest no doubt. If otherwise, pray don't tell.
I'm pulling time out of my nose in stretchy strings and flicking it off my fingertips... god knows I'm going to pay for it. hmmm. but so, so, so nice to see you here. it's become a quite a veeran-khandar, this place, na?
I love this post. Especially the lines "Why were you leaning in on me like that? It’s not very platonic, I said later..." Magnificent word plumbing, just magnificent.
You should keep posting, H.
Hey H. I came here following your comment off one of my old posts. This is sooo well written. Tell me you wrote 3 books and won a Booker with a Sahitya Akademy award to follow in the last 12 old swings around the Sun. Or better, wrote a few Netflix shows. Or anything.. still Bangalore based?
Zap
Post a Comment