Posted on by Allison Marie Conway

Sometimes the Body Stays

You braid your fingers into mine and bite my lip until I whimper just enough to get you off. You insert two fingers into the swelling place where I can’t help but come undone and you know it and I hate it but I want it just the same only worse than usual tonight because tonight I cannot bear the thought of tomorrow. I catch a glimpse of us in the mirror on the wall as you look at me without seeing anything I wish you could.

But I can’t see myself all that clearly these days so to blame you really isn’t fair although who’s to say what’s fair and what isn’t in a world so complicated, trembling, and half destroyed.

As you suck my neck like you’re thirsty for someone else’s blood and press your hands to spread my thighs I am reminded that beauty and filth are a similar kind of artistic expression if you think about it wrong. It doesn’t matter and you needn’t dwell on it, I am a thousand miles away from this disheveled cave, conspiracy theories stalking through my manic head. Take the whiskey, take a drag, take the hand which reaches to pull me high above the thunderous clouds.

I can see inside the souls of the frightened ones. The sweet apocalypse like candy fire sliding all over their forked tongues.

Everybody is afraid of the end, all convinced it’s here or will be any minute. And so vigilance. And so the skittish and the paranoid and the constant riot inside the rib cage and the screaming. It’s the waiting that disturbs them most. They cannot stand that they cannot stand not to know what they can never know for sure and so the guns and so the neon faces and the dislocation of limbs and brittle minds and fragile bodies.

And somehow you finish. And somehow I can tell. And somewhere deep inside my blood begins to rush again through my veins and my ears and my eyes are filled with mysterious tears I imagine are sacred like the stars. But the stars, of course, are empty. They’ve all but gone out a long time ago.

Sand pours through the slender neck of time. Space cradles the tiny erosions which scratch at the skin of the moon. Sometimes the body stays in place of the heart, covers for the soul. Sometimes the only thing you are desperate to hold is the thing that’s falling apart.

28 Replies to “Sometimes the Body Stays”

  4. Amazing how well you express moments that feel so personal to me. Even down to the metaphors, as if it wasn’t enough to touch the bare flesh of my existence. Your existence, of course. But I feel it well and deeply. The moon weeps sometimes as yet another layer of skin is torn away. She ducks behind clouds, but they move on, callously laying her bare once more, exposed to every eye with the sense to see. Not that she is ashamed of the desire; it is cold, after all, so far above, gyrating below the stars. Sometimes, I think I see her eyes close, and she glows with the warmth of adoration. But so often it is not about her, but the pleasure of others who stare and photograph and symbolize. I once wrote about how it feels to be–not loved, not desired–but useful. And I think she knows all too well what that feels like. Beautiful, humiliated, angry Arianrhod. You are a talented writer, Allison. Quite amazing.

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    1. Perhaps we are celestial bodies pulled together for a time, dear sweet George. I believe you when you say you understand, that these reflections are so real for you as to flare up in response to my words. Do you ever think about how we are made of star stuff, George? Your words here turn within me like little orbiting satellites … we are of the heavens, we are cold and barren as ice. I feel I know the vacuum, the vacancy, the infinity of a place I’ve never even been. You gift me so generously with your stories about the moon, so beautiful, so stoic. And Arianrhod. And for you to call me talented is quite humbling indeed, for you know and cherish language so much more than most. Thank you so much.

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      1. You are indeed talented, Allison, and I am grateful for all that you share. And the manner in which you do so, the honesty, the intensity, the language. All beautiful. Even just reading your comment here feels familiar and comforting, and reminds me of the joy I have felt in my life learning from others, like Carl Sagan, describing us as having been made of star stuff. I can only imagine that you too had that experience. Funny how over the years certain words, phrases, and often for me, voices, come back again and again, engaging me, reminding me of who I am and where else I need to go. I can still hear Carl Sagan’s voice in my head, and Neil deGrasse Tyson and James Burke and so many others teaching me. Maybe that too is why I chose to narrate audiobooks–I’ve always felt connected to voices. And yet here I write in a realm of quiet words. Perhaps I should record more of my verses. It matters, doesn’t it, being heard.

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        1. Joy is a beautiful thing. Thank you for bringing me so much of it with your thoughts which make me think so many thoughts. Have I told you my ancestry is Irish, and in Gaelic my name means Truthteller. Like you I think, my mother passed away when I was young, and she was the Irish side who gave me my name and so hearing you call my writing honest and your Gaelic Dreams name popping up, this makes me smile and think she is smiling, too. I know just exactly what you mean about voices. And I too have been thinking of recording some pieces again, I used to do it here more regularly, but haven’t in some time. Yes, I think it does matter, dear George. To speak. And to be heard. Perhaps more than ‘love’ that is what a human being wants. To know, and to have it be known, that for a while at least, we were here.

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          1. Exactly. Love is compelling and needing and sharing and beautiful, yes, and how easy it is to say, “All I want is to be loved.” And yet, perhaps again because of me and my fascination with language and poetry and writing–and whatever insecurities I have endured in my life–it matters sometimes just as much, if not more, to be heard. I know, we are surrounded by voices and sounds to the point where, I know with me anyway, we want to shut them all down. For a time at least. At times, I absolutely crave silence. Yet I appreciate so much the idea that someone hears me and really listens. And yes, loves me. I want my voice to endure. I have to admit, this venue on WP has helped me so much to feel that yes, there are a few people out there who listen and even want to listen to me. Even if I have never met them face to face. Sorry, there I go again. Blethering on. Your name is challenging. Origin wise, I mean. It is a lovely Irish name, associated with strength and truth, but it is also a clan name in Scotland. The MacAlisters in the southwest. And since so many names and southern clans had French connections, I wonder if it is perhaps–at least coincidentally–also French in origin.

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            1. Oh, I really do love your blethers, and I nod right along as I read your thoughts. WP is a lovely place, I am a bit less ‘social’ than many here I guess. I come to my writing as a way as you said to silence the noise, to get away from the world. The world is much too loud for me sometimes, and all the people who speak of nothing interesting or important. I get so exhausted. Ironically, I guess, I have made some connections with people here even by writing about escape. I am smiling that you are teaching me about my own name, haha, you have many more insights than I was ever aware of.. I love the Scottish and French connections… makes me feel more exotic and mysterious than I previously imagined. .. 🙂

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              1. Exotic and mysterious indeed. In a grand and fibrous social media forum that stretches intrusively across vast spaces, you, the quiet one, the reserved–the one seeking to escape the noisy, albeit virtual, crowd–you are a beautiful Celtic enigma. I am reading through all of your wonderful comments now, finding so much to say, to think about, and appreciating so very much that we have met. May the ever capricious gods grant that this conversation, this sharing, last for years and years to come, dear Allison.

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                1. A beautiful Celtic enigma.. this may be the sweetest kindest gentlest thing anyone has ever said to me. I do not deserve how lovely you are to me, dear George. But I join you in this little prayer to the capricious gods, to much, much more sharing to come….

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