JULIE ZEI #2 "I like the shape of your voice"

752 word count


We two are one. Writhing on the floor, intertwining and connecting in so many different ways and on so many different levels. Exchanging our bodies, our love and our life, and perhaps the potential for it.
I swallow this bitter pill, sent into my blood stream to kill of what could potentially change, it’s a great hate love relationships myself and this pill, with love itself.
This bed has become an island, deserted and void of any emotions you on you’re half and I on mine. There is prominently an invisible line separating yours from mine. Neither of us dare to cross it for fear of what? Rejection? Of experiencing feeling? You take the first step and crawl gently over towards the line but you dare not cross it simply lie there, I feel your movements and stare behind my prone from. And finally I return the favor. I crawl across my half of the island and ante up you’re movements, my frigid limbs cross over the line and engulf you in their cold grasp. But you don’t shy away or tense from the cold; you lean in and embrace it you swim in it as if it were the ocean tides, it is the ocean, the subtle flavor or salt on your skin, the gently rocking of our bodies intertwined, grasping for each other as if we will float away from the other and be lost in this ocean. I cling to you for strength and you to me. We cling to each other and to the hope that not all is lost, a search party will be along soon; they will throw us the life preserver we so desperately need.
But they do not come and the only thing we know for certain is that the other is still hoping, it’s evident in our eyes, in our panicked breath, in our shaking hands and frozen feet. We think that the world has a vendetta against us, they don’t want us to make it out of here alive. But from this we gain resolve we tighten our grips and raise our voices. We will not be left alone in this endless sea. We will not suffocate under the desperate grasps of the waves that threaten to pull us under. We look to one another and see the resolve we both feel, so we let go. The power of the sea takes us away you to the North and I to the West. I see you raise your hands in sweet surrender and you see I do the same, under we go.
The salt stings my body, at the lashes and bruises, the water pummels my tender body and I am tossed around the fathom like a rag doll out of a burning building. At last sweet release. I am tangled in the net, I can only hope it is your net. And finally I have been smiled upon from above; it is you. My lips peel back and reveal my relief, words attempt to surface from my lungs but air has yet to enter my body and strengthen it once again. But there you are leaning over my prone helpless body, concern in your eyes and love in your motions.
I…
love…
you…
All goes black and I am at peace.



Do you forgive me? I gave up but not for long, I came back, was it too late? I fear that it is even though I can sense you’re presence next to mine, both of us suffering yet too proud to admit it our pride may as well be our downfall, it was for so many others, unable to admit their mistakes, knowing that speaking the words will help yet too fearful of what may come to admit to them. Speculation is the reigning emotion.
Is it I who will have to break the silence that hangs over us as a vulture over carrion?
Am I the circling aviator, or the dead and dying creature helpless on the sun scorched ground? Do these questions make you uncomfortable? Does it feel like you’re getting chased in your nightmares by some unseen terror? Or is it more like when you’re falling, plummeting to your death, or is it a slightly more minor uncomfortable, like when you’re jeans don’t quite fit the way they used to, is it a fear of public speaking? Or being alone your dark bedroom when you were a child? Will you tell me or shall I keep guessing?