Primary Bonds
Nov. 17th, 2006 06:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinuePush; breathe.
Keep breathing.
There's a brown scar on my inner right wrist; I burned myself taking a chicken pie out of the oven. I made for it for the guys just before I left Dallas - it, and later, gumbo, and an apple tart; a thank you. This burn scar is almost identical in color, size, and placement to a scar from five years ago, which has since faded - the scar I got when I first moved to Hole in the Wall, when I burned myself while seasoning my wok.
I have an earring now that I didn't have before, which I've thought about losing; it doesn't make sense to me lately. It was only ever a compromise; what I wanted was a tattoo of a mechanical horseman, a herald leaning against the wind, waving a banner of allegiance. A black wing on my shoulder, a wing with two names, a marker. Trick and Valancy. Neither of them liked the idea.
I think I was wrong all along about love. I don't think it's a choice. I don't think it grows and develops and changes. I knew from the second I saw Patrick that he would be what he is to me now, knew we would share a unique intimacy that would be mistaken for romance, but wouldn't be; pulled him out of a crowd and didn't bother to ask his name until a day later. I jumped in and out of Val's life for years, never with any special closeness, but knowing that once I became stationary, we would be what we became, what we still would be even if we stopped speaking for two years.
I feel for Ciro how I have always felt for Ciro, how I perhaps felt the first time I heard his name - I knew so much about him before we met, too much to recognize what I was seeing and hearing. I've always ignored the forest for the trees; I'm too contrary. Don't you see the forest is too obvious and anyone could see the forest? Let me look at this caterpillar instead.
Do not let me look at the caterpillar instead.
I've been an idiot for years - a forgivable idiot, but an idiot. A liar too, a liar both inveterate and profligate. I've lied about my feelings and my state of mind, about my motivations. They aren't lies that helped anyone, although they helped me get my way; yet I could have had my way without them. Lies because I trust lies more than I trust honesty. I've had to write letters to people which say: I know you think the following, but that was all just pretend. I didn't really do such-and-such to help so-and-so, although it did help; I just wanted to get out of town. Letters which say: I was scared, but of different things than I said I was scared of.
This is better, this now, although I am not sure yet what this is, or who I am. I'm not sure it matters; the people who love me love me, regardless of what I do or do not do. My friends at the film school are the same people who chose to sit next to me the first day. I am 5'6". Val will always have my complete loyalty, above perhaps even Ciro - will be the person Ciro threatens to get me in trouble with.
(And he does; he's a terrible person who is completely willing to go over my head in matters like whether I take my vitamins. Who is eager to show off that he can. Our perpetual one-upsmanship - who walks faster, who has the most pronged belt buckle, who finds the best translation, who's a better wrestler. Our lives will be infinitely long, as we're determined to outlive each other. The exhilaration of a perfectly matched game; I laugh all the time, most of all at the pleasure of losing, anticipation of the inevitable rematch.)
I can't lose people's love, because I never won it in the first place. It simply was. Is. That should be frightening, but I don't feel frightened. I feel as though I jumped as high as I could, and at the apex of that jump, gravity changed. I leapt up into freefall, and thus descended to the underworld.
Keep breathing.
There's a brown scar on my inner right wrist; I burned myself taking a chicken pie out of the oven. I made for it for the guys just before I left Dallas - it, and later, gumbo, and an apple tart; a thank you. This burn scar is almost identical in color, size, and placement to a scar from five years ago, which has since faded - the scar I got when I first moved to Hole in the Wall, when I burned myself while seasoning my wok.
I have an earring now that I didn't have before, which I've thought about losing; it doesn't make sense to me lately. It was only ever a compromise; what I wanted was a tattoo of a mechanical horseman, a herald leaning against the wind, waving a banner of allegiance. A black wing on my shoulder, a wing with two names, a marker. Trick and Valancy. Neither of them liked the idea.
I think I was wrong all along about love. I don't think it's a choice. I don't think it grows and develops and changes. I knew from the second I saw Patrick that he would be what he is to me now, knew we would share a unique intimacy that would be mistaken for romance, but wouldn't be; pulled him out of a crowd and didn't bother to ask his name until a day later. I jumped in and out of Val's life for years, never with any special closeness, but knowing that once I became stationary, we would be what we became, what we still would be even if we stopped speaking for two years.
I feel for Ciro how I have always felt for Ciro, how I perhaps felt the first time I heard his name - I knew so much about him before we met, too much to recognize what I was seeing and hearing. I've always ignored the forest for the trees; I'm too contrary. Don't you see the forest is too obvious and anyone could see the forest? Let me look at this caterpillar instead.
Do not let me look at the caterpillar instead.
I've been an idiot for years - a forgivable idiot, but an idiot. A liar too, a liar both inveterate and profligate. I've lied about my feelings and my state of mind, about my motivations. They aren't lies that helped anyone, although they helped me get my way; yet I could have had my way without them. Lies because I trust lies more than I trust honesty. I've had to write letters to people which say: I know you think the following, but that was all just pretend. I didn't really do such-and-such to help so-and-so, although it did help; I just wanted to get out of town. Letters which say: I was scared, but of different things than I said I was scared of.
This is better, this now, although I am not sure yet what this is, or who I am. I'm not sure it matters; the people who love me love me, regardless of what I do or do not do. My friends at the film school are the same people who chose to sit next to me the first day. I am 5'6". Val will always have my complete loyalty, above perhaps even Ciro - will be the person Ciro threatens to get me in trouble with.
(And he does; he's a terrible person who is completely willing to go over my head in matters like whether I take my vitamins. Who is eager to show off that he can. Our perpetual one-upsmanship - who walks faster, who has the most pronged belt buckle, who finds the best translation, who's a better wrestler. Our lives will be infinitely long, as we're determined to outlive each other. The exhilaration of a perfectly matched game; I laugh all the time, most of all at the pleasure of losing, anticipation of the inevitable rematch.)
I can't lose people's love, because I never won it in the first place. It simply was. Is. That should be frightening, but I don't feel frightened. I feel as though I jumped as high as I could, and at the apex of that jump, gravity changed. I leapt up into freefall, and thus descended to the underworld.
