The other morning, I swiped a couple of Taze's tapes...
They were tapes of some of his original works; sort of new-age-y stuff, mostly... It's so beautiful, some of it. It reminds me of dancing. Of nymphs, of Pan, of beautiful naked people in forests and lakes in the middle of the night. It astounds me that I even know someone who could compose music like this. It astounds me further that Taze actually PLAYS most or all of the music, and that I'm actually dating this genius...
I made copies of this stuff -- just for my own benefit, I guess, because I love it -- and labelled the copies, "Some reasons why Carolyn loves Taze..." and "Some more reasons why Carolyn loves Taze..."
Yes, the music is beautiful. But I think maybe I only swiped them and copied them when I did is because I was trying to convince myself of something... Maybe to remind myself of some of the reasons I love Taze... It's sort of getting difficult to think about...
I want to love him. He's so perfect. He's so lovable. He's tall and handsome and brilliant and fun and open-minded... He has beautiful eyes... He's a fantastic lover... He smells sweet, he's gentle, he's honest... (Well... for the most part; he did lie about his age in the beginning, but he didn't lie about the time he went down on another girl...) He didn't hate me when I told him I'd slept with Chris... He doesn't hit me, he doesn't call me names, doesn't tell me I'm crazy, doesn't pull all that jealousy shit I'm so used to... He doesn't get all egotistical and macho about things, doesn't act like he's got things to prove all the time... He's freaking wonderful. PLUS he's one of the most talented musicians I've ever met...
The other night -- the night before the morning I swiped Taze's tapes -- we made love... Quite passionate love... But something kind of snapped in me, and I just didn't want to do it... I couldn't look at him... I didn't want to kiss him... I was suddenly so frustrated, so upset by the whole situation...
I cannot adequately explain my reasons... It just felt as though something was off. Something was wrong. Something just wasn't fucking right. Funny, how these things occur to me at ALL the wrong moments. Funny too, how the sex was so good, how it was so fast and crazy and sweet, and yet all I wanted was for it to end: for us to get off and go to sleep, so I could roll over and be by myself for a bit. It was the sort of sex that usually would have had me in ecstatic tears by the end, but instead, I just clung to Taze's shoulder, carefully not looking at his face, and sighed quietly to myself when my breathing had come back to normal.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
I only remember this happening one other time.
It was in Santa Fe. Danny and I had gotten together maybe a month or two earlier, and we'd fallen into the habit of sleeping together in his room. It was a rather small bed, of course, being a singles dorm room. One night, I woke up after Danny had already fallen asleep... It was probably around five or six in the morning, but I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. I just lay there, snuggled up to Danny (snuggling is sort of inevitable in a small bed), feeling this horrendous contempt for him. I just wanted to smother him with a pillow. Not that he'd done anything wrong -- he hadn't! I just DIDN'T WANT to be in bed with him! I didn't want to touch him! There was such a profound lack of love, this horrible knowledge that he loved me and I just didn't love him, and I was so sickened by it all that I actually got up, dressed, and went back to my own room...
It's this feeling of wanting to scream, "god-dammit, get OFF me!" It's wanting to yell, "stop expecting so much from me!" It's wanting so desperately to love in a manner consistent with expectations, and failing so miserably -- just NOT being in love -- and being so incredibly frustrated with yourself, and just wanting to scream, or hurt something, or somehow place a great amount of distance between yourselves...
I guess I can't explain it any better than that. I also had a bit of that feeling the day Robbie and I made love in the kitchen of our old apartment: just a day or two after I'd gotten back from Asheville, and the last thing on EARTH that I wanted to be doing was making love with Robbie... Though that afternoon probably qualifies as one of the most passionate and intense sexual experiences I've ever had, and I daresay it's probably one of Robbie's, too... If I remember correctly, that was the last time we ever touched. I just couldn't do it after that. I just didn't even want to touch him.
So, I guess what I don't understand is why this feeling comes on sometimes so suddenly, so intensely... If it was ONLY about the frustration of not being in love with my sexual partner, why was I so capable of having sex with Chris? Or A.J.? Why didn't I feel that certain contempt for them?
I sat here yesterday, at this very desk, scrawling, "some reasons why Carolyn loves Taze," and listening intently to the music I was recording. I wanted so badly to be in love with Taze, wanted so badly to be able to make a list of reasons, wanted so badly just to be in love with him the way I think I'm in love with--
Oh, fuck.
I guess I know what that feeling is...
It's something along the lines of, dammit, I love somebody else... I belong elsewhere... A feeling of being too tightly held... A feeling of being loved too much by someone who isn't aware that my heart is elsewhere...
[I'm lighting another cigarette...]
His name is Ian.
He had blue hair. And the sweetest arms in the world... I remember so vividly sitting in the back of his car, trying not to fall asleep, racing through the desert at 120-130 miles an hour, caressing his arms with my eyes... He was wearing this white wife-beater tank top, and the dashboard light outlined every muscle, every vein, and I could feel this pounding inside of me... I wanted him to stop the car, wanted Bronwyn to just disappear, wanted him to lay with me, hold me in those arms, wanted to kiss every inch of those safe, beautiful arms...
He used to call me "beautiful girl." Sometimes just "beautiful."
I used to sit behind him in English Composition class. Luckily, English is my strong subject; I never heard a damned word the teacher spoke. I wrote this narrative essay for that class once about a guy named Brian (brIAN) who'd distracted me with his loveliness to the point of failing my English class... I said it was fictitious. I suspect the teacher never knew I spent most of her class silently craving the warm touch of my classmate.
We've fallen into the habit of emailing each other almost daily now. I've fallen into the habit of checking my email every few hours. So has he. We've fallen into the habit of not really bothering to cover up our affections for each other, just to maybe subdue them a little bit. I've fallen into the habit of bringing him with me everywhere I go, mentally emailing him, writing long letters to him about nothing, writing these ridiculously long confessions of passionate love...
[Gah-dammit, I loved you... And I could NEVER say anything about it... I loved you from the moment I saw you, and I TRIED not to, because I always supposed you'd break my heart... I tried not to because I didn't want to hurt Danny. I never mentioned your name to him, never told him about long nights spent staring into your eyes over beers and "Wild At Heart," and imagining myself in those arms of yours... I never told him how you made me smile, how you really made me feel beautiful, how I always imagined us making sweet love in the desert -- just you and me in the no-man's land of New Mexico... I never told him, and I never told Robbie anything more than your name... Never mentioned to Taze anything more about you than that you'd sent me a package with a mix-tape in it, and that we once went to Vegas together and had to walk through the desert at sunrise to get to the nearest gas station. I've never told ANYBODY, not even myself, and it's grown so unbearable that I'm counting down days until I see you next. Just six weeks now...]
[Always felt like we were having some kind of secret affair... Always seemed like there was this desperation... Always seemed like everybody knew all these secrets about us, even though there weren't any -- except the ones I saw in your eyes... Everybody thought there was something between us... I mention your name now to friends, and they say, "are you still with Taze, because it seems like you really have something with this guy Ian?" I mention your name to Taze, just casually, and he says, "I'll never mean as much to you as he did." I don't know how to hide this anymore. I don't know how to pretend I don't get a little chill every time I see your name in my email... I don't know how to go through my life pretending that you're not somehow a part of my life even though you're a nation away from me... I don't know how to pretend I'm happy making love with my good friend Taze when all I want is to see you, and to stare into your eyes like I used to, telling you all my secrets and sort of surrendering myself to whatever I find in yours.]
[I remember the night I finally got to touch you... The night everybody asked me about later: "what's going on with you two, anyway?" And I didn't know what to answer... I only knew that we'd both had a few drinks and that I might never have remembered any of it except that there I was, and there YOU were, and I was stroking your arm, that lovely arm of yours, and playing with your hair, and we were lying together on Kate's bed, talking about spaceships and hitch-hikers, and I could feel my entire body tingling with the delight of being close to you... And nothing else mattered, and nobody else was in the room -- maybe they were, but I couldn't care less... I just remember YOU... The way you smiled at me, the way you seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of stories that could fascinate me for years afterwards... I remember it all, and dammit, I never freaking SAW you again after that... I never even got to say goodbye...]
[I'm half-crazy from the wondering: wondering what you'll be like when I see you again... what kinds of sparks will fly this time... what unholy magnetism is drawing us closer... Dammit Ian, DAMMIT, I lost touch with you once... I spent eight months within inches of admitting this relentless feeling I had for you, and then we disappeared to our respective corners of the country, and I'll be damned if I let that happen again... I'll NOT be afraid. I'll NOT be inhibited. I'll not let you go without kissing your sweet arms and KNOWING what the hell this is, what the hell this could be... Dammit, the wondering is killing me...]
I love you. I love you, dammit. It terrifies me. It fucking terrifies me.
And now I ask you, how the hell am I supposed to go to Taze's apartment, lie cozily on his futon in my underwear watching a movie or talking or making out... HOW am I supposed to pretend I'm not 3,000 miles away from him? How am I supposed to spend the next six weeks just stagnantly waiting for our reunion and pretending I'm trying to make this thing with Taze go someplace when I already know it's going nowhere... How am I supposed to pretend that what I'm feeling every time I read your emails, every time I listen to your mix-tape, every time your name pops into my head -- how am I supposed to pretend those feelings are designated for him? How can I not fucking hate the entire world for this eternal waiting? How can I hold the contempt at bay?
I love you, dammit.
Everybody always knew it.
It's been two and a half years since I met you. Two and a half years of trying to figure out what the hell was going on inside of me... Trying to deny it and forget it and ignore it... I'm going to explode. I can't wait anymore. I can't wait. I CAN'T WAIT.
I promised Taze I'd make an appearance at his apartment tonight... It's past midnight already; I guess I'd better get going...
Tebe mám ráda, sweet one.
~Your gothprincess, Carolyn*