♥
"Articulacy of fingers, the language of the deaf and dumb, signing on the body longing. Who taught you to write in blood on my back? Who taught you to use your hands as branding irons? You have scored your name into my shoulders, referenced me with your mark. The pads of your fingers have become printing blocks, you tap a message on to my skin, tap meaning into my body. Your morse code interferes with my heart beat. I had a steady heart before I met you, I relied upon it, it had seen active service and grown strong. Now you alter its pace with your own rhythm, you play upon me, drumming me taut.
I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes. Never unfold too much, tell the whole story. I didn't know that you would have reading hands.
Could I ever feel any less for this body? Why does ardour pass? Time that withers you will wither me. We will fall like ripe fruit and roll down the grass together. Let me lie beside you watching the clouds until the earth covers us and we are gone.
I am thinking of a certain September. Wood pigeon Red Admiral Yellow Harvest Orange Night. You said, "I love you." Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? "I love you" is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them. I did worship them but now I am alone on a rock hewn out of my own body.
Love demands expression. It will not stay still, stay silent, be good, be modest, be seen and not heard, no. It will break out in tongues of praise, the high note that smashes the glass and spills the liquid. It is no conservationist love. It is a big game hunter and you are the game. A curse on this game. How can you stick at a game when the rules keep changing? Love makes the world go round. Love is blind. All you need is love. Nobody ever died of a broken heart. You'll get over it. Time's a great healer.
It's the cliches that cause the trouble. A precise emotion seeks a precise expression. If what I feel is not precise then would I call it love? It is so terrifying, love, that all I can do is shove it under a dump bin of pink cuddly toys and send myself a greeting card saying 'Congratulations on your Engagement.' But I am not engaged, I am deeply distracted. I am desperately looking the other way so that love won't see me. I want the diluted version, the sloppy language, the insignificant gestures. The saggy armchair of cliches. I don't have to be frightened, look, my grandma and grandad did it, they did it, my parents did it, now I will do it won't I, arms outstretched, not to hold you, but to just keep my balance. How happy we will be. How happy everyone will be. And they all lived happily ever after."
yes or no. jeanette winterson's some emo shit.
