It's Not Real, It Doesn't Count

If you cannot touch it, does it not exist?

 

photo retrieved from http://fineartamerica.com/featured/clock-pendulum-swinging-jill-battaglia.html

Your warm chest beckons to me like a siren’s call.  Warmth fills my body and the tender beating of your heart, soothing like that of a pendulum.  It beats harder, thundering within my ears like the solid sound of a bass drum that lulls me until I am deafened by it.  Yet you still don’t let me go and still that pendulum swings letting me know that it won’t be long.  It won’t be long until it stops again.  I suffocate, and I relish every moment of it as I take you all in.  Face buried in chest, your head lowered with your breath upon my ear.  Standing with rough texture of uniform crushing my cheek and the stiffness of it is ignored for the warmth, searching for the softness of t-shirt you had worn earlier.  Hands reach up searching for the skin of your forearms to find sleeves, while fingers run down looking for the hardness of metal.  None to be found.  Not yet at least. 

The pendulum stops and I am alone, curled up in bed staring at a blank screen filled with words, empty and blank like a dry/erase board.  Write, scratch, write, scratch, scribble out the words that don’t sound right then write some more.  Continue staring, wait five minutes or five hundred years curled up in fuzzy blankets naked of the scent wanted to still be there. Lifting up an edge and burying my face within it, trying to find it there and almost imagining it was.  Afraid to breathe it in too much and have it disappear completely.  Wondering if it was real.  The kind of real that is tangible beyond human touch. 

Never thought there was such a thing as a breathless kiss until those moments with you when I’d lose the strength to exhale, too caught up within all the other senses to remember to.  The world melts away around me like the wax from a candle.  Just continues to drip, drip, drip down, and pool at my feet.  Then I lose the strength within my knees as they begin urging me to bow at your feet.  I never wanted it to end and I’d stand there for a few moments after, pretending it didn’t.  To you I suppose I was merely ‘collecting myself’ as we’d move hurriedly along within our day.  My stomach dropping to the floor with a loud Thud that resonated within my heart every so often.  Quietly I’d try to maintain composure (failing miserably) and sneak off to grab the mop and bucket to clean the mess before its noticed with a stare and a look and a ‘What are you thinking about’ to which I would reply with a quiet “Nothing, never mind” and a soft smile.

My own heart begins to beat with that pendulum tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick, faint enough that it cannot be heard other than through the masked tone of my voice, and hidden requests within my heart.  Too much to ask and entirely too much to presume that it would be fathomable or so.  Just a quick kiss and out the door, faster than a speeding bullet that it rivals the feats of Superman and how I wish that Pendulum would go as fast or faster and swing me along allowing me to ride upon it instead of continually following its lead, head bowed like a scolded puppy.   Instead I watch it pause as it glides side to side and seemingly the longer that I stare, the longer the pause at each side.  The longer I listen, the more I tire of its monotony.  I get so frustrated I want to kick it, throw it until it shatters, or flick that blasted thing with my fingers until it moves at an unnatural rate, use the power of my mind and heart’s desire and will it to cooperate when it’s in its stubborn nature to not oblige me.  Tick…tick…tick…tick…tick…tick… Face run down with tears I bury my face in the blanket to muffle the sound of my cries. 

I close my eyes and stop when I realize that you’re here with me, laughing.  I lift my head from the crumpled moistened blanket and look at you, smiling in return.  Look to the mirror and I had just woken up: my hair a tangled mess, my restful sleep toying with the idea of a 1980’s flock of seagulls look.  Limbs not tangled within sheets instead tangled within your limbs and sinew.  We continue to laugh playfully with lips gently caressing the flesh of shoulders as we curl up together, arms wrapped around each other instead of pillows.

A pair of hands came up to me the other day, laced and unnameable.  Their haughty presence unnerved me, like two cards-Queen of Hearts and the King of Spades slapped face to face and stuck together as though glued or haphazardly taped together with masking tape.  I can’t see their faces, not that I would want to either, considering.  Their grip is strong upon the other, fingers tight to where the knuckles turn white, but they don’t seem to mind so much.  I reach my hand out ever so slightly from my side, gently searching then allowing my fingers to curl up gently into my palm.  They notice and note that my hand remains empty. I insist that it is not, that although you and I stand face to face through a silken screen with the sound of the pendulum clicking away within the background, I can close my eyes tight and imagine our fingers wrapping around that silk into each other. It is not skin that holds us, it is what is beneath into the very core of our beings in which we cling to.  It’s the resonating sound that is unlike any other that keeps hold of us while we ignore the sound of the pendulum. 

It isn't real and it doesn’t count, or so they say.  They walk away happily within their own little world, perfectly aware of what pain they try to cause but it’s not pain that I feel…more pity that they don’t understand.  That it is only a matter of time before that pendulum is replaced with the sound of a bass drum as my face buries once again into the heat of your chest, my hands no longer searching through veils of a silken screen.  

Author's Note

Grammar probably isn't the greatest.

Reviews

[Glen Yumang Manese]

Bravo...that was a helluva read...I liked how you paced the flow all the way to the end of this read...never quite ends --- even in the final sentence...grips you and takes the reader right in with the actions for which the person is going through in the paragraphs...I have to take a break and come back to read more...this is out right relentless in the scheme of things...the pendulum effect breaks down much of the suspense...seems down right real...

[Aramey]

Julie! Wow! This is excellence... Bravo on a job well done, you never cease to amaze :)

[B.S. Scarpa]

Your writing always seems to bring me to the scene. its like you can see whats actually happening while you read..

[Larry Dyson]

excellent read.. innovative expressionalism in the walking dreams.

[J.V. Stanley]

Thanks for reviewing. Been doing a lot of dream walking lately, figured I'd start penning them.

[de_maruf]

nice

[Cole Hayley]

Ignoring the few grammar issues I did spot, this is a very solid piece.

[J.V. Stanley]

Thank you :D

[aj Foxley]

I love you, but boy, do I wish I could take you away from this. I wish I could do something..

[J.V. Stanley]

I love you too, hon. Miss you