He. You. She.
Three poems for free. I hope they're okay.
My Avocado
Sitting there in the fridge, smug
That would be fucking right
But I know he’s hiding the truth from me
The naughty shit
His skin — dark and rough and green
And yet he looks so perfect
Ready for a salad
Mine to take
Mine to eat
But my avocado
Hiding his foul brown-ness from me
Leading me on
Lying in my fridge
Lying to me
He’s nothing but a liar
Naughty little avocado
You’re naughty
You’re a naughty little shit
My Pen
Baby where did you go?
Three days
Three whole days since I lost you
My soul aches wondering where your plastic-self might be
Your spare ink cartridges lie still — no longer with purpose
Baby where did you go?
I still remember how you felt between my fingers and how you
Managed to speak for me
Even at the worst
Even at the best
Even in the middle
You were all of me when I was nothing
Ink running down to your tip
I could always coax out what you had
To spill
Baby where did you go?
It was easy
To work you, until you couldn’t help yourself
And then your hot, thick truth was all over my page
And you were mine
And I was yours
Baby, where did you go?
My Crazy
My crazy wakes up early and goes to bed late
My crazy knows that there isn’t enough time in the day
My crazy has a busy schedule and I am at the top of the list
My crazy has been watching me
My crazy has been paying attention
My crazy knows the drill, but
My crazy, she lacks imagination — for she looks just like me
My crazy talks like me
My crazy walks like me
My crazy smells like me
My crazy, well, she’s just like me
My crazy is me
My crazy is everything I want to be
My crazy is everything I’m not
My crazy is qualified
My crazy is tired, and
My crazy wants her life back
My crazy is going to win.
Showing posts with label this was fun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label this was fun. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
Monday, January 18, 2016
Untitled
I’m parked outside your house and I can feel time passing normally. It slips through my fingers and I don’t hold onto it despite knowing that I can.
The street light above me flickers and I think of that song. Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me, all alone in the moonlight.
No, it wasn’t ‘a street light flickers’. It was ‘a street light gutters’. Different, I suppose.
And soon it will be morning.
Whatever. I hate that song anyways.
Your front porch light clicks on and I jump, but it’s only your cat activating the sensor. I see it slink off into the bushes. All your blinds are pulled up and the internal lights are on so your family doesn’t seem to notice the porch light. Lucky. Not that it would matter to me. Well, not really.
I crawl over the center console and exit through the passenger seat so that I can slip around the back of my car and into the thick hedge that guards your front yard.
I want to watch you in your element, sweetness. I want to see the way you are now — without me. I want to see how you are with him, sweetness — your husband.
~~~
It starts to rain and I feel the urge to stop it but I want to see you — because through the window, in the yellow glow of your kitchen light, I see you chopping onions and chicken and all I can hear is you saying how you hate to cook. All I hear is how it’s such a goddamned stereotype for women to be in the kitchen doing what men tell them to do. What men expect them to do.
And yet here you are. With your shiny engagement ring and your sparkling wedding ring and your hollow smile. You’re wearing a fucking apron. And sautéing. And forcing a smile. And doing all the things you swore you would never do.
Never. Ever. Do.
You’re a lying sack of shit, sweetness. You are the scum that I scraped off my toilet bowl last night.
You are the girl I lost hold of.
And you’re all that I can think about anymore.
~~~
Eventually the safety light turns off and I get a better view of you in the kitchen and him pouring a glass of fucking chardonnay. For himself. You cut roughly through a stubborn tomato and it spurts onto your dress above your apron. I watch you try to wipe it off but I see he’s angry. You failed to please him.
I see you eye the wine.
I know you want some and I know he probably disapproves of you drinking at all. If only he knew you and who you really were.
What you want is a shot of tequila. Or an old fashioned. Or some smooth whiskey over ice.
I know what you want sweetness.
He — your husband — knows nothing about you.
~~~
From the hedge I can’t hear you but I can see him exiting the kitchen and taking up a seat in the lounge. He turns on the NFL and I see you cringe as you realise you’re going to have to watch it all night. Your hand shakes. You look across at the bottle of wine and quickly turn back to the tomato-chopping that is your job.
I know you’re absolutely dying for a cigarette.
No. Better. A fucking cigar.
The stink of it. The heat of it. The weight of it in your hand.
A cigar and a whiskey. I know you sweetness.
I know what you want.
I continue to watch as you focus on your tomato and he turns the volume up on the television. The tension in your neck makes me angry and I want to bust in there and save you from your fate. But you made your choices.
I watch him laugh out loud at an advertisement on the box and I watch you shrink further down. And that’s when I decide to stop it.
I stop time.
~~~
Inside the house your husband is the first person I walk by and I mark him an idiot for not bothering to lock the front door behind him. His mouth is open and there’s a droplet of spit hanging between his lips and the palm of his out-held hand. I have a strong urge to take his hand and stuff it into his mouth and twist his legs back the wrong way until they buckle and break.
I stop myself. I know that things can’t be undone.
I focus on you.
You, sweetness. With your apron and your glossy hair and your shiny heels. Right now — you are everything that I know you not to be. You’re trying too hard to fit into his life. You are mushing yourself into a mold that isn’t worth it, a mold that will turn you out like a smooth, self-loathing chocolate bunny rabbit.
I touch your hair and it is softer and cleaner than I remember it to be. I kiss your neck, but it is as smooth as I remember it to be. You are rigid, frozen in time, and so am I, but in a different way. I hold you tight and I rut up into you and all I want is for you to be mine forever.
Is that too much to ask?
~~~
I start time again.
I am in the other room now, your bedroom, and neither of you notice. I listen to your back and forth as I silently rifle through your drawers of clothing.
“Carrots?” you ask.
He’s watching the game. “Hmm. Whatever.”
I hear you dissolve and I know he doesn’t see it.
I see it. I see it in how quiet you are in response.
~~~
I stop time.
I can’t rewind and I can’t fast-forward. I wait a little longer this time, glad that I don’t have to hear your forced words and his uninterested responses. I’m always surprised by how excruciatingly quiet it is when the world stops. Deafening — it presses in on me and sometimes I can barely stand it.
The majority of your knickers are sensible in a repeating trio of beige, black, and dark blue, but right at the back of the drawer my fingers find a pair of socks that aren’t soft enough. Your vibrator.
I wonder if he knows, at the same time realising that, of course, he doesn’t. I bet he can’t even make you come. Does he try?
A range of pills inhabit your mirrored medicine cupboard and I pocket a few just for my own amusement. For later, after I go home and pretend like I’m going to sleep.
Your makeup is a neat yet excessive collection of overly expensive brands that fill a deep drawer under the sink. I remember you wearing dark eye liner and smudged mascara and I remember, every Sunday morning, with the help of a coffee and then a cigarette, you’d pluck the stray hairs of your eyebrows and complain how women would never be set free from all the fucking expectations.
Still, every Sunday morning, you’d pluck away until you were down to the filter and the skin above your eyes was red and puffy.
We fought more than was necessary but you were always my best girl, sweetness. If only I could rewind.
But all I can do is stop.
~~~
Your house is nice but it’s not you at all. Plush carpet (carpet is dirty and I don’t vacuum), eggshell walls (yeah…I don’t scrub walls), and too many bedrooms for what is needed in my opinion (who needs this many room?! It’s only more space to clean).
You were never the domestic type.
That song is still playing in my head.
And soon it will be morning. Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me, all alone in the moonlight.
I don’t even think those lyrics are aright. Morning is a long way off, but for the moment I still have time stopped, so it doesn’t matter.
Back in the kitchen I’m tempted to lift up your dress to see how you’re keeping things for him. That’s too far though. Instead I take a glass from the cabinet, pour some wine and place it just next to your chopping board. I press my face into your neck and you smell just like the girl I know you are. I pull your hair and your head cocks back and I remember how much you liked that.
I take a step back and admire your long, curling locks that hang from your tilted head.
I start time again.
~~~
You start backward but immediately catch yourself and straighten your neck again. You drop the knife and he calls from the living room when he hears it clatter on the bench.
“Everything alright?”
You cough. “Yes baby. Just slipped. Sorry, get back to your game.”
He doesn’t respond and that’s when you notice the wine. From behind, I watch you hesitate. You continue to chop your tomato and I know you want the drink — you want to let go and give in and give up — and he laughs in the living room and I see you tense up again.
I’m breathing as quietly as I can, and there’s no reason for you to expect me to be behind you, but still, my nerves and the exhilaration of even being here in your house is making me thump hard with adrenaline. My heart beats in my chest. I worry you’ll hear it.
You don’t. You don’t even turn. You place the knife down almost silently and lift the glass to your lips. You drain it. I wonder if it’s sheer want or terror that makes you do it.
You put your glass back down and I can’t help myself. I stop time and refill it. And then I get close enough to brush my lips against your neck and I immediately regret it. I want you. Badly. I want to pick you up and take you out of this awful house and away from this man who doesn’t love you. I want to hold your warmth close to my own and go back to the days we had. The days where we would be high or drunk or just inebriated in one way or another. I want to fix you but I know I’m probably the one who needs fixing.
I stop myself. I know that things can’t be undone.
You’re halfway through the second glass when I stop time.
I take it from your hand and empty it into the sink. I wash it, dry it, place it back in the cupboard, and arrange you to chop the tomato — as if you had been chopping it the whole time.
I want to brush my finger across your lips and hold you close to me. Close enough that you could feel how much I still want you. It’s always been you, sweetness. Yours is the name I say when I get there.
Every time.
I can’t rewind and I can’t fast-forward. I know I shouldn’t have come here at all, but just like you, I find it hard to help myself.
I walk out of your front door and I don’t look back.
I make it to the end of your garden path and out onto the street. The moon is bright above me and I’m singing that fucking song in my head again. A streetlamp gutters.
I’m looking back at your house. I start time again. I don’t notice the black Leviathan and there is less than a second before it hits me. I am man against RangeRover, and I lose.
The street light above me flickers and I think of that song. Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me, all alone in the moonlight.
No, it wasn’t ‘a street light flickers’. It was ‘a street light gutters’. Different, I suppose.
And soon it will be morning.
Whatever. I hate that song anyways.
Your front porch light clicks on and I jump, but it’s only your cat activating the sensor. I see it slink off into the bushes. All your blinds are pulled up and the internal lights are on so your family doesn’t seem to notice the porch light. Lucky. Not that it would matter to me. Well, not really.
I crawl over the center console and exit through the passenger seat so that I can slip around the back of my car and into the thick hedge that guards your front yard.
I want to watch you in your element, sweetness. I want to see the way you are now — without me. I want to see how you are with him, sweetness — your husband.
~~~
It starts to rain and I feel the urge to stop it but I want to see you — because through the window, in the yellow glow of your kitchen light, I see you chopping onions and chicken and all I can hear is you saying how you hate to cook. All I hear is how it’s such a goddamned stereotype for women to be in the kitchen doing what men tell them to do. What men expect them to do.
And yet here you are. With your shiny engagement ring and your sparkling wedding ring and your hollow smile. You’re wearing a fucking apron. And sautéing. And forcing a smile. And doing all the things you swore you would never do.
Never. Ever. Do.
You’re a lying sack of shit, sweetness. You are the scum that I scraped off my toilet bowl last night.
You are the girl I lost hold of.
And you’re all that I can think about anymore.
~~~
Eventually the safety light turns off and I get a better view of you in the kitchen and him pouring a glass of fucking chardonnay. For himself. You cut roughly through a stubborn tomato and it spurts onto your dress above your apron. I watch you try to wipe it off but I see he’s angry. You failed to please him.
I see you eye the wine.
I know you want some and I know he probably disapproves of you drinking at all. If only he knew you and who you really were.
What you want is a shot of tequila. Or an old fashioned. Or some smooth whiskey over ice.
I know what you want sweetness.
He — your husband — knows nothing about you.
~~~
From the hedge I can’t hear you but I can see him exiting the kitchen and taking up a seat in the lounge. He turns on the NFL and I see you cringe as you realise you’re going to have to watch it all night. Your hand shakes. You look across at the bottle of wine and quickly turn back to the tomato-chopping that is your job.
I know you’re absolutely dying for a cigarette.
No. Better. A fucking cigar.
The stink of it. The heat of it. The weight of it in your hand.
A cigar and a whiskey. I know you sweetness.
I know what you want.
I continue to watch as you focus on your tomato and he turns the volume up on the television. The tension in your neck makes me angry and I want to bust in there and save you from your fate. But you made your choices.
I watch him laugh out loud at an advertisement on the box and I watch you shrink further down. And that’s when I decide to stop it.
I stop time.
~~~
Inside the house your husband is the first person I walk by and I mark him an idiot for not bothering to lock the front door behind him. His mouth is open and there’s a droplet of spit hanging between his lips and the palm of his out-held hand. I have a strong urge to take his hand and stuff it into his mouth and twist his legs back the wrong way until they buckle and break.
I stop myself. I know that things can’t be undone.
I focus on you.
You, sweetness. With your apron and your glossy hair and your shiny heels. Right now — you are everything that I know you not to be. You’re trying too hard to fit into his life. You are mushing yourself into a mold that isn’t worth it, a mold that will turn you out like a smooth, self-loathing chocolate bunny rabbit.
I touch your hair and it is softer and cleaner than I remember it to be. I kiss your neck, but it is as smooth as I remember it to be. You are rigid, frozen in time, and so am I, but in a different way. I hold you tight and I rut up into you and all I want is for you to be mine forever.
Is that too much to ask?
~~~
I start time again.
I am in the other room now, your bedroom, and neither of you notice. I listen to your back and forth as I silently rifle through your drawers of clothing.
“Carrots?” you ask.
He’s watching the game. “Hmm. Whatever.”
I hear you dissolve and I know he doesn’t see it.
I see it. I see it in how quiet you are in response.
~~~
I stop time.
I can’t rewind and I can’t fast-forward. I wait a little longer this time, glad that I don’t have to hear your forced words and his uninterested responses. I’m always surprised by how excruciatingly quiet it is when the world stops. Deafening — it presses in on me and sometimes I can barely stand it.
The majority of your knickers are sensible in a repeating trio of beige, black, and dark blue, but right at the back of the drawer my fingers find a pair of socks that aren’t soft enough. Your vibrator.
I wonder if he knows, at the same time realising that, of course, he doesn’t. I bet he can’t even make you come. Does he try?
A range of pills inhabit your mirrored medicine cupboard and I pocket a few just for my own amusement. For later, after I go home and pretend like I’m going to sleep.
Your makeup is a neat yet excessive collection of overly expensive brands that fill a deep drawer under the sink. I remember you wearing dark eye liner and smudged mascara and I remember, every Sunday morning, with the help of a coffee and then a cigarette, you’d pluck the stray hairs of your eyebrows and complain how women would never be set free from all the fucking expectations.
Still, every Sunday morning, you’d pluck away until you were down to the filter and the skin above your eyes was red and puffy.
We fought more than was necessary but you were always my best girl, sweetness. If only I could rewind.
But all I can do is stop.
~~~
Your house is nice but it’s not you at all. Plush carpet (carpet is dirty and I don’t vacuum), eggshell walls (yeah…I don’t scrub walls), and too many bedrooms for what is needed in my opinion (who needs this many room?! It’s only more space to clean).
You were never the domestic type.
That song is still playing in my head.
And soon it will be morning. Touch me, it’s so easy to leave me, all alone in the moonlight.
I don’t even think those lyrics are aright. Morning is a long way off, but for the moment I still have time stopped, so it doesn’t matter.
Back in the kitchen I’m tempted to lift up your dress to see how you’re keeping things for him. That’s too far though. Instead I take a glass from the cabinet, pour some wine and place it just next to your chopping board. I press my face into your neck and you smell just like the girl I know you are. I pull your hair and your head cocks back and I remember how much you liked that.
I take a step back and admire your long, curling locks that hang from your tilted head.
I start time again.
~~~
You start backward but immediately catch yourself and straighten your neck again. You drop the knife and he calls from the living room when he hears it clatter on the bench.
“Everything alright?”
You cough. “Yes baby. Just slipped. Sorry, get back to your game.”
He doesn’t respond and that’s when you notice the wine. From behind, I watch you hesitate. You continue to chop your tomato and I know you want the drink — you want to let go and give in and give up — and he laughs in the living room and I see you tense up again.
I’m breathing as quietly as I can, and there’s no reason for you to expect me to be behind you, but still, my nerves and the exhilaration of even being here in your house is making me thump hard with adrenaline. My heart beats in my chest. I worry you’ll hear it.
You don’t. You don’t even turn. You place the knife down almost silently and lift the glass to your lips. You drain it. I wonder if it’s sheer want or terror that makes you do it.
You put your glass back down and I can’t help myself. I stop time and refill it. And then I get close enough to brush my lips against your neck and I immediately regret it. I want you. Badly. I want to pick you up and take you out of this awful house and away from this man who doesn’t love you. I want to hold your warmth close to my own and go back to the days we had. The days where we would be high or drunk or just inebriated in one way or another. I want to fix you but I know I’m probably the one who needs fixing.
I stop myself. I know that things can’t be undone.
You’re halfway through the second glass when I stop time.
I take it from your hand and empty it into the sink. I wash it, dry it, place it back in the cupboard, and arrange you to chop the tomato — as if you had been chopping it the whole time.
I want to brush my finger across your lips and hold you close to me. Close enough that you could feel how much I still want you. It’s always been you, sweetness. Yours is the name I say when I get there.
Every time.
I can’t rewind and I can’t fast-forward. I know I shouldn’t have come here at all, but just like you, I find it hard to help myself.
I walk out of your front door and I don’t look back.
I make it to the end of your garden path and out onto the street. The moon is bright above me and I’m singing that fucking song in my head again. A streetlamp gutters.
I’m looking back at your house. I start time again. I don’t notice the black Leviathan and there is less than a second before it hits me. I am man against RangeRover, and I lose.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Night Swim
You
Ning always sat on the edge for a little while, enjoying the mostly silent nights, and the feeling of release that she got just before she pushed forward and slipped into the water.
Each night was different — cool and blustery, warm and still, clear, cloudy, raining, hot, heavy with humidity, or so cold that her skin shrunk into goose pimples — but every night was special to Ning. She indulged in the changing nature of her time once the sun was gone each day, and she accepted whatever awaited her.
Tonight was very calm indeed and with her bare skin pressed into the rough cement edge of the pool and her legs dangling in the water, Ning was, as always, in her element.
The moon was high and the sky very clear, enough so that she could easily see a few dozen stars and further, out beyond her town, the dim yellow glow of the city. This was her favourite part, just before she slipped in — the thought of the water taking her, the knowledge that she shouldn’t be there (the pool was closed at night) — it was her secret after-hours playground.
And…
The thought of being caught, in the dark, naked, at the public pool. It was enough to make her blood boil with electricity. It was the feeling of being alive.
Something rustled in the bushes behind her but Ning only glanced back out of pure physical reaction. She was used to bats and birds and rodents sharing the night with her. She had stopped being scared a long time ago.
Inching forward on the cement, she lifted herself up and then dipped straight down.
She was submerged.
Underneath the water entirely for a moment, she bobbed up again, smoothed back her long hair and let her lungs open up and fill with air.
This was her night swim.
***
Me
I’ve been waiting.
I’m leaning against the thick palm tree just down from the public pool. I know I’ll hear you when you climb over the fence — it always rattles loudly in the quiet night — more than you seem to think it does. You throw your towel over first and then look both ways, as if you were about to cross the road. I’ve learnt that’s just habit though, because you know that no one will see you. You look but you don’t really look. It’s almost as if the act itself is muscle memory.
I wonder to myself how long you’ve been coming here. I've wondered this many times before. I feel sad that I don’t know the answer and that I also potentially missed out on many nights.
This is the hard part though — waiting. I like to wait by the palm but I feel seedy when I do it. There’s a bench further down with a lamp post directly above (bright enough for me to read by) but it’s too close to the school that owns the pool, and if I sit there I’m always afraid a passing police car will think I’m their quota for the night.
But they don’t know about you. They don’t see you.
They don't see the girl at the pool.
I’m anxious tonight. I got here early because I couldn’t stand to be at home. I had this feeling that you might be early as well, but I was wrong. It’s 11: 47 when I see you walking quietly up the path towards the pool fence and it’s so calm tonight in the street that I’m worried you’ll hear my watch ticking.
But you don’t — of course you don’t; it’s just a watch. I’m being paranoid.
You’re wearing that nice, bright blue dress with the zip down the front, and your hair is tied up in a bun. I wish I could tell you how much that colour suits you, and how I love it when I finally get to see you with your hair down. It’s usually tied up — I guess you don’t like to walk with it out. Pity.
Today was a bad day. I feel it on my heels as I make my way along the fence on the other side of the street, keeping to the shadows, watching you get closer to the part of the fence that has a fire hydrant in front of it — you need to stand up on it to get high enough to pull yourself over the fence.
Today was a bad day. Mr Greenwald said my piece on the closure of the butter factory wasn’t inspired. Jesus. Does he know that no one cares about the fucking butter factory. I did the best I could and the piece was a failure because there was nothing to get — dusty floor, rusted broken down churners, cleared out cupboards and only one, grey-ish guy who was willing to say more than two words to me — the piece was hollow, but the photos turned out quite well. I considered making a small collection and approaching the The Alley. It's that tiny art gallery behind the bank. Maybe. I don’t know.
Today was a bad day. Mr Greenwald is an idiot. I’m quiet and I don’t argue with him so he gives me jobs that he is certain will flop. Still, the guy wouldn’t know a story if it blew his head off with a semi-automatic. Those who have no talent, manage.
Today was a bad day. You would touch my hand and your dark eyes would soften and you would tell me it was okay that I had a shitty day. You’d fix my Tuesday. I know you would. You’d tell me to work a little more on the photo collection and go for it. You’d tell me it was good enough. You’d tell me I was good enough.
I stop when I see you get to your spot and throw your towel over the fence onto the grassy grounds that surround the pool. You have it down to a fine art — stepping up on the hydrant, steadying yourself with both hands on the fence, you pull up, up and UP. Your hips are on the fence like a gymnast and you swing your legs up either side of you like a monkey. You stand, then, tall; a beautiful statue upon the vertical metal prongs.
You look down over the pool. This is your domain. And then, gracefully and without fear (it seems) you jump straight down. It’s a good seven feet to the ground but you land on bent knees and your hands touch the ground momentarily before you grab your towel and straighten up. You are a seasoned professional. You are a cat burglar in the night. You are a fucking ninja. You are perfect.
My camera is heavy around my neck. On one hand I regret bringing it, but on the other…
I’m tense. Taught with excitement and anticipation. If I don’t crumble to ash perhaps I’ll get some nice, clear photos of you. Ones that I can print up big, big, in my dark-room. I could frame them. Look at them all day. Your blue dress. Your hair. And, and, all of you…
allofyou. ALLOFYOU.
You’re about to walk to the far side of the pool so I know this is my chance to move. You won’t hear me while you walk, as long as I’m quiet, and I can usually circle the pool fence and get all the way to the side that is lined with dense shrub before you even start taking out your hair.
I’m right (of course), and we both move, purely out of habit. You, across the grass to the diving blocks and the corner that you like best; me, around the edge of the fence to the place where I like to sit. We’ve done this a million times — not that you know.
I know it’s not a million but it feels good to say that.
I’m sat between two trimmed hedges in the moonlight. The safety lights are on you and on the pool, and I know you can’t see me.
But I can see you.
You.
I watch you. This is a good part, but it’s not my favourite.
This part.
You dump your towel on the ground at the edge of the pool and reach up to unzip your dress. I get hard as you slip it down I see that you’re not wearing a bra tonight. Your knickers are black and you take them off and toss them onto your discarded dress. Your caramel skin is darker in the moonlight than I imagine it is in the daylight, but your business center is neat and your breasts…
Your breasts.
They’re small and pert and oh my God I’m so fucking hard.
You reach up and take the pins and ties out of your hair. It falls down around you in dark waves and I get up on my knees. This is my favourite part.
You sit down on the edge of the pool and each time, I wonder what it feels like — that cold hard cement against the bare skin of your butt. I want to touch that skin. Oh god, I want to touch your bare skin. I want to touch any part of you. I want to touch all of you.
You lift yourself forward and the moonlight and the safety lights reflect off your caramel and I can see you breasts and the tight skin that leads down to your belly button, and the skin that leads down from that, and the small patch of hair just above your sweet spot.
You splash into the water and I am overcome. I’ve seen you do this for one thousand, one hundred, and twenty-eight days and it doesn’t get old. We're not up to a million yet. I push through the honey that is desire and keep my eyes on you. The best part is over but the other stuff is so good that I don’t care.
You float on your back and your small breasts breach the surface of the water. Your nipples pull up in the cool air and I can see them in the moonlight. The water laps over your skin and you breathe deeply to fill your lungs with air and keep your body afloat.
You do an upside down breast stroke for a while. You watch the sky. I don’t know what you see up there but I know that all I see is you.
Eventually you turn over and pick up a lazy sort of freestyle that takes you all the way to the hundred meter mark. When you get there I kneel up and look through the fence to where you float at the edge of the pool. I snap a few quick pictures. I get some good ones of your wet hair and the droplets of water that hang on the lower part of your stomach.
I love your night swim. I wonder if you get off on it (like I do). I wonder if your pussy is wet, or if you wish there was someone here with you. I wonder if you have a boyfriend. I wonder if he’s handsome. I wonder if he has a big dick. I wonder if he knows about your night swims.
You do a few more laps and I see the moonlight again on your wet skin and I’m literally about to explode in my pants.
My phone buzzes silently in the pocket of my pants and I check it.
It’s my brother. He’s drunk.
dude! izzy is messy tonight. think I can coax her into sucking me for once?
I ignore the message and the fact that he can manage the word ‘coax’ when he’s inebriated — overachiever.
I should be polite, but as a matter of fact, I don’t give a fuck that my brother’s wife refuses to put his dick in her mouth — that’s his problem.
I come back to you. I focus on you. You’re almost at the other end of the pool and this is my other favourite part.
When you get to the edge you swoop up and the water pushes your hair out of your eyes. Your hands get purchase on the cement and your hoist yourself up.
I watch as your hips hit the cement and the smooth, wet cheeks of your butt reflect the moonlight. You bend forward and give me the best view — the back of your upper thighs, and the just the hint of your cunt.
You’re dripping water and I’m hard and you glide up out of the pool, as if by magic. You glisten in the moonlight. You are impossible.
I want to be near you. I want to smell you and touch you and hold you and eat you up until there’s nothing left.
I want you.
I want to be part of your night swim.
I want to be your night swim.
You pick up your towel and wrap it around you and with the rest of your clothes in one hand you head back to the fence. There’s a ladder propped in one corner and you find it easier to exit that way. I don’t know who put it there but it looks dusty and old and abandoned.
I circle back around the pool fence and I have a very strong urge to stroke a hand along my dick, but I don’t.
I’m watching you. I’m watching as you towel off and get back into your clothes. You’re still a little bit wet. I know because they stick to you as you get back over the fence. I watch you try to un-stick them.
I can see the line of your knickers through your blue dress. I can see how you smile to yourself.
I think I might follow you home tonight.
Ning always sat on the edge for a little while, enjoying the mostly silent nights, and the feeling of release that she got just before she pushed forward and slipped into the water.
Each night was different — cool and blustery, warm and still, clear, cloudy, raining, hot, heavy with humidity, or so cold that her skin shrunk into goose pimples — but every night was special to Ning. She indulged in the changing nature of her time once the sun was gone each day, and she accepted whatever awaited her.
Tonight was very calm indeed and with her bare skin pressed into the rough cement edge of the pool and her legs dangling in the water, Ning was, as always, in her element.
The moon was high and the sky very clear, enough so that she could easily see a few dozen stars and further, out beyond her town, the dim yellow glow of the city. This was her favourite part, just before she slipped in — the thought of the water taking her, the knowledge that she shouldn’t be there (the pool was closed at night) — it was her secret after-hours playground.
And…
The thought of being caught, in the dark, naked, at the public pool. It was enough to make her blood boil with electricity. It was the feeling of being alive.
Something rustled in the bushes behind her but Ning only glanced back out of pure physical reaction. She was used to bats and birds and rodents sharing the night with her. She had stopped being scared a long time ago.
Inching forward on the cement, she lifted herself up and then dipped straight down.
She was submerged.
Underneath the water entirely for a moment, she bobbed up again, smoothed back her long hair and let her lungs open up and fill with air.
This was her night swim.
***
Me
I’ve been waiting.
I’m leaning against the thick palm tree just down from the public pool. I know I’ll hear you when you climb over the fence — it always rattles loudly in the quiet night — more than you seem to think it does. You throw your towel over first and then look both ways, as if you were about to cross the road. I’ve learnt that’s just habit though, because you know that no one will see you. You look but you don’t really look. It’s almost as if the act itself is muscle memory.
I wonder to myself how long you’ve been coming here. I've wondered this many times before. I feel sad that I don’t know the answer and that I also potentially missed out on many nights.
This is the hard part though — waiting. I like to wait by the palm but I feel seedy when I do it. There’s a bench further down with a lamp post directly above (bright enough for me to read by) but it’s too close to the school that owns the pool, and if I sit there I’m always afraid a passing police car will think I’m their quota for the night.
But they don’t know about you. They don’t see you.
They don't see the girl at the pool.
I’m anxious tonight. I got here early because I couldn’t stand to be at home. I had this feeling that you might be early as well, but I was wrong. It’s 11: 47 when I see you walking quietly up the path towards the pool fence and it’s so calm tonight in the street that I’m worried you’ll hear my watch ticking.
But you don’t — of course you don’t; it’s just a watch. I’m being paranoid.
You’re wearing that nice, bright blue dress with the zip down the front, and your hair is tied up in a bun. I wish I could tell you how much that colour suits you, and how I love it when I finally get to see you with your hair down. It’s usually tied up — I guess you don’t like to walk with it out. Pity.
Today was a bad day. I feel it on my heels as I make my way along the fence on the other side of the street, keeping to the shadows, watching you get closer to the part of the fence that has a fire hydrant in front of it — you need to stand up on it to get high enough to pull yourself over the fence.
Today was a bad day. Mr Greenwald said my piece on the closure of the butter factory wasn’t inspired. Jesus. Does he know that no one cares about the fucking butter factory. I did the best I could and the piece was a failure because there was nothing to get — dusty floor, rusted broken down churners, cleared out cupboards and only one, grey-ish guy who was willing to say more than two words to me — the piece was hollow, but the photos turned out quite well. I considered making a small collection and approaching the The Alley. It's that tiny art gallery behind the bank. Maybe. I don’t know.
Today was a bad day. Mr Greenwald is an idiot. I’m quiet and I don’t argue with him so he gives me jobs that he is certain will flop. Still, the guy wouldn’t know a story if it blew his head off with a semi-automatic. Those who have no talent, manage.
Today was a bad day. You would touch my hand and your dark eyes would soften and you would tell me it was okay that I had a shitty day. You’d fix my Tuesday. I know you would. You’d tell me to work a little more on the photo collection and go for it. You’d tell me it was good enough. You’d tell me I was good enough.
I stop when I see you get to your spot and throw your towel over the fence onto the grassy grounds that surround the pool. You have it down to a fine art — stepping up on the hydrant, steadying yourself with both hands on the fence, you pull up, up and UP. Your hips are on the fence like a gymnast and you swing your legs up either side of you like a monkey. You stand, then, tall; a beautiful statue upon the vertical metal prongs.
You look down over the pool. This is your domain. And then, gracefully and without fear (it seems) you jump straight down. It’s a good seven feet to the ground but you land on bent knees and your hands touch the ground momentarily before you grab your towel and straighten up. You are a seasoned professional. You are a cat burglar in the night. You are a fucking ninja. You are perfect.
My camera is heavy around my neck. On one hand I regret bringing it, but on the other…
I’m tense. Taught with excitement and anticipation. If I don’t crumble to ash perhaps I’ll get some nice, clear photos of you. Ones that I can print up big, big, in my dark-room. I could frame them. Look at them all day. Your blue dress. Your hair. And, and, all of you…
allofyou. ALLOFYOU.
You’re about to walk to the far side of the pool so I know this is my chance to move. You won’t hear me while you walk, as long as I’m quiet, and I can usually circle the pool fence and get all the way to the side that is lined with dense shrub before you even start taking out your hair.
I’m right (of course), and we both move, purely out of habit. You, across the grass to the diving blocks and the corner that you like best; me, around the edge of the fence to the place where I like to sit. We’ve done this a million times — not that you know.
I know it’s not a million but it feels good to say that.
I’m sat between two trimmed hedges in the moonlight. The safety lights are on you and on the pool, and I know you can’t see me.
But I can see you.
You.
I watch you. This is a good part, but it’s not my favourite.
This part.
You dump your towel on the ground at the edge of the pool and reach up to unzip your dress. I get hard as you slip it down I see that you’re not wearing a bra tonight. Your knickers are black and you take them off and toss them onto your discarded dress. Your caramel skin is darker in the moonlight than I imagine it is in the daylight, but your business center is neat and your breasts…
Your breasts.
They’re small and pert and oh my God I’m so fucking hard.
You reach up and take the pins and ties out of your hair. It falls down around you in dark waves and I get up on my knees. This is my favourite part.
You sit down on the edge of the pool and each time, I wonder what it feels like — that cold hard cement against the bare skin of your butt. I want to touch that skin. Oh god, I want to touch your bare skin. I want to touch any part of you. I want to touch all of you.
You lift yourself forward and the moonlight and the safety lights reflect off your caramel and I can see you breasts and the tight skin that leads down to your belly button, and the skin that leads down from that, and the small patch of hair just above your sweet spot.
You splash into the water and I am overcome. I’ve seen you do this for one thousand, one hundred, and twenty-eight days and it doesn’t get old. We're not up to a million yet. I push through the honey that is desire and keep my eyes on you. The best part is over but the other stuff is so good that I don’t care.
You float on your back and your small breasts breach the surface of the water. Your nipples pull up in the cool air and I can see them in the moonlight. The water laps over your skin and you breathe deeply to fill your lungs with air and keep your body afloat.
You do an upside down breast stroke for a while. You watch the sky. I don’t know what you see up there but I know that all I see is you.
Eventually you turn over and pick up a lazy sort of freestyle that takes you all the way to the hundred meter mark. When you get there I kneel up and look through the fence to where you float at the edge of the pool. I snap a few quick pictures. I get some good ones of your wet hair and the droplets of water that hang on the lower part of your stomach.
I love your night swim. I wonder if you get off on it (like I do). I wonder if your pussy is wet, or if you wish there was someone here with you. I wonder if you have a boyfriend. I wonder if he’s handsome. I wonder if he has a big dick. I wonder if he knows about your night swims.
You do a few more laps and I see the moonlight again on your wet skin and I’m literally about to explode in my pants.
My phone buzzes silently in the pocket of my pants and I check it.
It’s my brother. He’s drunk.
dude! izzy is messy tonight. think I can coax her into sucking me for once?
I ignore the message and the fact that he can manage the word ‘coax’ when he’s inebriated — overachiever.
I should be polite, but as a matter of fact, I don’t give a fuck that my brother’s wife refuses to put his dick in her mouth — that’s his problem.
I come back to you. I focus on you. You’re almost at the other end of the pool and this is my other favourite part.
When you get to the edge you swoop up and the water pushes your hair out of your eyes. Your hands get purchase on the cement and your hoist yourself up.
I watch as your hips hit the cement and the smooth, wet cheeks of your butt reflect the moonlight. You bend forward and give me the best view — the back of your upper thighs, and the just the hint of your cunt.
You’re dripping water and I’m hard and you glide up out of the pool, as if by magic. You glisten in the moonlight. You are impossible.
I want to be near you. I want to smell you and touch you and hold you and eat you up until there’s nothing left.
I want you.
I want to be part of your night swim.
I want to be your night swim.
You pick up your towel and wrap it around you and with the rest of your clothes in one hand you head back to the fence. There’s a ladder propped in one corner and you find it easier to exit that way. I don’t know who put it there but it looks dusty and old and abandoned.
I circle back around the pool fence and I have a very strong urge to stroke a hand along my dick, but I don’t.
I’m watching you. I’m watching as you towel off and get back into your clothes. You’re still a little bit wet. I know because they stick to you as you get back over the fence. I watch you try to un-stick them.
I can see the line of your knickers through your blue dress. I can see how you smile to yourself.
I think I might follow you home tonight.
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