“Make me an apprentice to your body parts.”

At times the shape and flow of the human body catches me completely off guard, forcing all air out of my lungs. Only to breathe in so deeply, surrendering the entirety of me to the sight I just witnessed.

A leg, fully extended, stretched as long as it’ll go forming a line that precedes the infinite.
The wrist, perfectly turned out, pushing the fingers into delicate directions.
A spine, cloaked in muscle and skin, forming the arrows that Amor shot down from the heavens.
The hips, doing only what lovers can do between the sheets, birthing some sort of truth to the sordid parts of our lives.

When I see these things that beg to be miracles of our wretched bodies, I can’t help but rewind and replay. To see it in my mind’s eye over and over until I just can’t take it anymore.

There’s a sort of sadness locked inside that space. Something that almost beckons that we are not human. All of us deities, skin puppets to those more perfect around us. Above us. Below us.

This is what happens when viewing anything ethereal.
We are left in front of mirrors with our own imperfections.

The wrinkles that are forming around the eyes and mouth.
The peculiar placements of beauty marks and freckles.
The dimples, the ripples, the callouses and poorly pigmented skins.

But,
should you play your reflection backwards,
rhythm will be unlocked.

Who says lump equals sum?

The first night I had ever met him we were in a loud and cramped place. Sure, I heard about him, and he had heard bits about me.
He walked up to me, looked me square in the eye, neither acknowledging nor dismissing the people I was with, the people he knew.
“You must be Shari,” he said.
He grabbed my face, both hands on my cheeks, “You are gorgeous.”
It was kind of dark in that place.

The second time I met him he kissed me within ten minutes and I didn’t disprove.

The third time I met him he put his business card in my pocket and asked me to call. I never did and the card ended up being washed the next time I did my laundry.

The fourth time, he wised up. Asked for my number and danced with me all night.

The fifth time…

I decided to give it a go.

Before the others come.

Tick tock, tick tock. Swish, swish.

You shake those hopes in that thick lace that drapes round those bones, over that flesh.

Tick tock, tick tock. Swish, swish.

Yeah, your hips move too.

I do this… Frequently. Every day. From late morning through the afternoon ’til the early eve. -If I’ve nothing else going on, which is every day these days.

I listen to old things spinning ’round the record player and I create stories in my head. Thinking that if God did exist, if fate and destiny were proven things… I would have been a woman back then. Because in this day and age, I’m always a girl… And it shouldn’t have been this way. I shouldn’t have been.

I dance around, dance with the music until others come home. I dance and I dance.

Yeah memories flood in. Of past lover’s hands and mouths. Of where I was when… Of where I could be… Of who was there… Who was not.

“Oh what the moonlight can do…”

And yeah, every last bit breaks my heart. Sometimes it causes me to laugh, sometimes to cry. And that’s why I can’t do it when others come home.

So while I’m alone I can sway, I can move, I can be what I should have been.

Trumpet and trombone could have made the tower. Dusty voice, the cable that ties.

“Because that’s how it goes when…”