v u l v a l i c i o u s black lines white page 2013-02-19 // 2:41 a.m. you're written black and spidery across the white page in front of me. i tried to stop myself, but i couldn't. i drew your hands in poses, first tight then loose. the grip of your fist and your fingers flexing. i wrote your name, your heart, every detail remembered and invented, covered the page and my drawings until all that was left was four specks of white. i'm contemplating you from across the room, from distances farther that i know how to cross. the line that was always so definite now a blurry thing, thinner and thinner, or else running into and over, into and around, all these carefully drawn hands. but see, i'm thinking about grabbing you. the illicit touch of palm on neck, fingers on throat. i don't want to hold you so much as pin you down. get close enough that i can discern every detail. i have to stop inventing you inside my head. i speak your name to end it, but only end up dragged deeper down. instead of hands, i fill the next page with lips. mouths in various stages of speech. they are all your mouth, every one. they say yes. please. come. do. want. need. every monosyllabic affirmation i can pull from them, catching the heat of the word and translating it with pen on white. waiting to color in that fresh bitten blush til i've got it all down. i draw right over them, every no i can muster. don't. why? go. out. never. couldn't. disgusting. what could ever make you think i would want you? so i've covered you up one way or another, not entirely sure what i want any more and too scared to ask you what exactly you mean when you say i love you. and that spidery line that scrawls out your name twists in on itself and dances in front of me. it sings seduction and shakes its hair, hot and smooth. that line won't waver like i do. i am focusing on it, honing in. trying to remember right and wrong, black and white. the look of your hair in your eyes and the sun on the water. i am resisting this amorphous thing that threatens to surround and control. i am letting go of something, or need to be. back-forth