Untamed

“You’re a twit,” he said, putting his coat over my shoulders – a gesture he normally would not make. It was nearing the end of autumn and the nights were gradually getting colder and I had chosen to wear an outfit that did not take this into consideration. Being a twit was the normal description he would give me whenever I did something that he thought was of poor judgment. A twit, indeed.

I smiled to myself, taking comfort in the warmth of his coat and realizing the familiarity that I missed. His eyes were brown, his hair short and black, with a face and body to die for. It wasn’t long before I began reminiscing about sitting on the wooden green bench, tagged with the names and catch phrases of others. I coveted him forever and the moment was mine. With him alone, on the wooden green bench. There was so much to take in of him all at once; it was exciting all on its own. The smell of his cologne, the way he made my clothes feel non-existent whenever he touched me, the way just looking at him made me hot under the collar.

The same smell that I remember existed in his coat. I took long, deliberate breaths, closing my eyes and sending myself further back. I could feel warmth on my neck, repeatedly, followed soon after by a tingling sensation as his lips pressed firmly against my skin. Everything inside me tensed, anticipating whatever might come next. His hand placed on my thigh, moving slowly upwards and his lips finally meeting my own, our tongues engaging in a delicious war. He pressed against me; our hands roamed each other, as though to claim what was ours.

It felt like only seconds until our bare bodies were tangled together, working in a unison movement to race towards a climax. Sweat dripping, heart racing and illicit cries of pleasure. I held myself around him closely, a hand on the back of his neck, squeezing slightly as the feeling intensified and he, unrelenting…

I open my eyes. Sheets twisted around one of my ankles, the slight sound of the blinds tapping the window frame from the window, a soft glow of moonlight peeking through the cracks. The bed empty, as always. Except for me and my hand.

Fuck.

“I miss your writing. Do you still write, anyway?”

The black text sat on my screen, as I rubbed my tired eyes from whiling away countless hours in front of my laptop. The message in my inbox was from an old friend, someone who had always been there to share a word or two on whatever drivel of writing I had to shove in their face. The question itself was amusing, to me, because only a few days before I had asked myself the same question. Being in this place, that was so familiar now, yet has changed so much has made writing seem that little bit farther away than it used to be. Really, I just let it slip too easily. I didn’t lean how to let it move with me. On the one hand, I gained freedom and mobility. On the other, I let some part of me stay behind, collect dust and linger until I had remembered that it was something I enjoyed, something he enjoyed. Something they enjoyed.

So much time spent on something so continuous. It wasn’t even one of those phases where the idea was fleetingly ‘cool,’ yet stopped after a couple of days. There was an attachment to it all, right down to the basic output of where it all lived. A few times I tried to continue the trend I started, elsewhere, disjointed from it all, but I could never bring myself to do the deed. Nothing felt right about the way it started. Where should it begin? Why shouldn’t it continue from where it once was left? And yet, it all came down to the fact that it just couldn’t compare. There was no familiarity, no personality. No matter what, I could not shake the feeling that I was still leaving it all behind. Everything about it felt half-assed and that was something which I could not tolerate, something which I felt was far from my style and ability.

It makes me wonder what took so long for me to get this far and realise exactly what it was I had been missing all this time. Sure, there were a lot more things involved now than used to exist in my life, but that just seams to be a ‘in the meantime’ excuse for leaving it all. So many things happened back when I made this a larger part of my life that I have become so detached from. People I had encountered, who I don’t even remember or recognise anymore. Things that were said that I struggle to remember their significance or relevance.

So here I sit, as I finally smile at my success of reviving the old, the lost, the forgotten. I am home. All together, nothing separated. Finally. I reply.

Yes, I still write.

The mirror showed a different reflection, one that I never used to see but one that was now familiar to me. A reflection that is more ‘me’ than it ever had been in the past; that reflection felt just that bit more accurate. On the surface, that mirror reflected everything accurately, it reflected my skin exactly as it were, and it reflected my blue eyes in complete precision, my hair in its true form. What one saw by glance was exactly that. What they saw.

Beyond that surface was something else being reflected. It showed me to a more detailed level; me to a level that could not be seen just by appearance alone. Those blue eyes, that white skin, that dark hair, it was all irrelevant, all far less detailed in comparison. It could be easy for me to say that I am still the same as I have always been; that I am now what I was five years ago, or even longer than that. It could be easy. If I were to be ignorant; if I were to be deluded.

Do I feel worse off now than I did before; am I different for the bad rather than the good? I didn’t believe so. I didn’t see so. Being how I was before was necessary though, vital and the very reason I was who and what my reflection showed today. The question stood openly for people to ask, “Who are you, what are you today?” The question would never be answered. At least, it wasn’t going to be me who provided them with the answer. Not in the conventional sense, at least.

The question can be asked, and the question always is asked. It isn’t that there isn’t an answer, or that I do not know what the answer is (for I always see the answer every time I take the time to think about it, every time I take the time to see that reflection); but rather, the question isn’t meant to be answered by me. It is the questioner who will eventually be answering their own question. They just have to take the time to see that reflection themselves.

Is it the same reflection I see, though? I cannot say. The reflection can and does differ from person to person; perhaps the reflection is very similar from person to person but often details vary. Then there are those moments where the reflection is entirely different from what I see, or from what others see. Who, what I am could be answered, I could answer the question but at the risk of tainting the vision of others.

My reflection continues to look back at me and asks not to give answer. That reflection requests those who matter to find the answer themselves. It is then that I notice my reflection is craftier than it used to be; that reflection has tests, methods of drawing observations and conclusions, its own way of finding accuracy into what it sees and how it chooses to respond. There are those who have found that answer, and even fewer who have found the accurate answer.

I speak and I explain.
Never will I answer.

It is now that most ask themselves if their own answer is the accurate one. It is now that you understand that you know me better than anyone.

This feeling …of saying something without having any way to remove it is somewhat of a new one. I’m not sure what to think, or particularly how to feel about putting something out in the open without having control of whether I can “hide the evidence” later. I suppose not having a ‘way out’ is a comfort; a way of being forced to show something I may normally hide from another. There is no backspace, there is no vocal “I didn’t mean that”, there is no delete function. A pure, raw moment.

The only problem which may arise out of such a thing is the inability to go back and re-word anything, for fear of the actual words giving the wrong intention, feeling or as though things are …I don’t know what word to use for it. I don’t want it to seem as though whatever I say gives off some idiotic or rushed kind of tone, or as though I believe I feel something entirely which is of quite considerable meaning, and know or believe it. Ah, for once I’m stranded up a fucking creek with no paddle as I attempt to try to explain what I mean. Where are the fucking words for it?! This kind of thing drives me absolutely insane, when I need to express something and yet the words refuse to present themselves adequately.

I’m not stupid, I’m not running into this at full-speed, and I know what the currently reality is, especially in regards to what you think about the circumstances. My cut off word meant… well… not its literal form; how could I, right? I care. That’s what I mean. I care about you completely, regardless of the ‘status’ I may ever find myself in with you. I’m not confused, I’m not blinded by anything, I’m not saying things “for the Hell of it”, I’m not allowing myself to obligate anything from you or from myself. That wouldn’t be fair.

Finally, I think I’ve explained one, tiny thing that just worried me as soon as I pressed abschicken.

I believe you know what I mean, or at least what I’m getting at with this entry.

I almost erased all this.

Fear.

First and foremost: It appears, for me, that “getting to the point” takes three paragraphs. With that small side-note out in the open, I can finally begin addressing a topic that’s inspired the urge to respond.

Before I delve straight into this, I feel the need to explain a certain entry title, seeing as it had a meaning but never got touched on in the post itself. A bit unusual for me, especially when the title has some sort of message that is being conveyed with it, but no less I found myself writing about something entirely unrelated to that title. Thus, I must deal with it here where it can be better understood, as it relates to the topic I’m about to run head-first into. For those of you who are my regular readers, you may remember a particular entry titled “Life’s hand of cards“, and as though it may appear that the title relates to the entry contents itself, it really missed its entire meaning completely.

Life seems to have some sort of unexpected twist about it, ready to throw at people whenever they’re least expecting it. Time, it seems, is merely life’s ‘right-hand-man’ and is a character in this game of charades that causes me to spend a lot of time pondering. I wonder, as I recall a few recent events which have occurred, whether there is actually ever such a thing as ‘the right time’. If events happen in a particular fashion, whether it be a good or bad thing, how am I to know that what I have experienced happened out of coincidence?

Having put that question onto the table, I don’t mean to say that ‘destiny’ played a part in this or that such a thing even exists. The more I recall taking the time to go back to a ‘past event’ and track a particular person down, the more I begin to wonder if there was ever a “bad time” to catch him. See what I mean about ‘destiny’ seemingly trying to show itself through that mist of unclear future? I don’t believe ‘destiny’ had anything to do with it, but I also fail to believe that coincidence had its hand at recent events either. Take a look at it this way: if you found yourself arguing with someone due to something you bought up which aroused anger in them, you might be likely to say that it was a ‘bad time’ to raise the subject.

Is it really a ‘bad time’, or did it merely happen because that is what was supposed to occur? It is so difficult to raise that question without it seemingly linking to ‘destiny’. I think things happen merely because that’s how they’re intended to happen; they’re driven by the past, but not determined by the future.

If I didn’t take the time to track down someone when I did, how would I know what might have happened if I’d done so earlier, or later? The simple answer is that I wouldn’t know, and I don’t know. The more thoughtful answer, which will be in the form of a question, might take a bit of pondering from you, my dear reader, is: Would ‘earlier’ or ‘later’ ever exist? If not, then surely the two are merely a fabrication of the mind; a pretence that we know of, but never exists.

Surely it would only be the mind wandering into the ‘what if’ of life and concentrating so hard on the ‘could have’ that it seemingly becomes possible that things could have happened another way. More interestingly, this situation only ever occurs after the event has come and gone, which even further puts attention on the fact it may just be our feeble minds going for a walk taking a few fragmented pieces of information they now possess. We know how things turned out, and it is only then that we are able to imagine some different possibilities. So what happens next?

I’m not saying I know you because of destiny, I’m saying I know you because I chose to.