Member-only story
The Language of Desire
At 19, wanting someone else is the same as wanting yourself
I once went to a party in a glass house. Round, overlooking the night-stretched Los Angeles hillsides like a fishbowl on a precipice. One shove too far and the whole thing would tumble, shatter, splashing its depths and creatures out into the unruly pitch-dark.
He was an awful kisser: He thought he was a dentist, tried to scrape the scruff from my gums, unrelenting, tongue all over teeth. Still, I wanted to be the kind of person that likes such roughness. This greasy Cheeto-y mouth that swarmed mine — I wanted, terribly, to enjoy it. So I sat still and sweetened the moment with pinprick thoughts of another person’s mouth. When he pulled away, how defiant and satiated he looked — like he’d kissed the indifference out of me. I smiled, turned my head, tried to watch the movie playing in front of us, but streaks of disgust lingered in my brain like some fogged-up windshield and I could not clear myself of them.
Then there is you. The kind of person with your face sprung open like you’ve sowed earnestness since the day you were born. Pillow-soft you, the lush place I want to curl into, the toothpaste around the sides of my lips you, you with your gentleness, your disinterest, your distance. You linger for days, a mere sentence, or a word, a punctuation point…
