The Princess Diarist(30)

Maybe no man is an island



But some might as well be



The type whose bats



Always seem to get in your belfry





What am I getting myself into that I don’t want out of?

I can’t remember beginning, I can’t conceive of ending. That I am afraid of, that I need, that I find unlike anything I could ever have imagined or anticipated, that I can’t do without, that I don’t know what to do with a cliché.

And what if I said I loved you? What then? To justify some delinquent desire with the confessions of some emotion? You’d know where you stood—right on my feet. It needn’t be anything. But it’s the possibility that leaves us delirious with dull discussions.





This is fairly new. Incurable optimist that I am, I am bravely inclined to think it’s temporary. The hundred-dollar question: “What do we mean to one another?” Afraid the answers won’t support each other. And all this talking around the issue. But what is it? “Let’s define our relationship,” you bastard. I spend my entire epic existence vacillating between extremes and I think possibly this might be changing—but no. What the fuck happened to the in-between? Midway between passive and panicked. I seem to become involved in situations that only allow for tension. I’m beginning to think, “Relaxation is a rumor, a vicious rumor started by a sadistic . . .”





We could come to a full stop now if you think that would help. Because like any other B-movie heroine, I can’t go on like this. Can you understand? I don’t want to hurt you any more than I want you to hurt me. It’s now a question of surviving each other’s company instead of enjoying it.





Trying relentlessly to make you love me, but I don’t want the love—I quite prefer the quest for it. The challenge. I am always disappointed with someone who loves me—how perfect can he be if he can’t see through me?





I can just get so close



Till I begin to suffocate



I must go back to the surface



To breathe



I catch my breath



I manage to breathe



Offhandedly supplying distance



While I seemingly never leave



To compensate



For my lack of honesty



I entertain with distorted truths



My inadequacies and obsessions—



If a personality can be promiscuous



Mine would be quite loose



Try as I might



I can give to you no more



Than I give the next person



Or the last



I set the stage by establishing positions



You are the audience



I—the cast



I try to be somewhat exclusive



Somehow I never quite succeed



We’ll keep in touch



But enough



Is too much



I’ll need new disinterest on which to feed





Of course I’m playing a losing hand



A hand on which I invite you to tread



If only I could love someone



But I’ve chosen to love



Anyone



Instead.





Hey check-coated guy



Blow your smoke into my favorite eye.



Steal your arm around me



Till you’ve finally found me.



All under a moonlit sky.



Oh my



All under a moonlit sky.



Moving side to side



On a dampening lawn



My head falling to his shoulder



He stifling a deep yawn.



The party fast receding



Leaving the dancers with the night



Someone runs some water



Someone turns out a light





Half woman and half bar stool



The room spinning round from rounds of drink



She sits hunched over her wine glass



Returning any time she was given to think





Who am I doing it for,” I asked him. It was a fairly rhetorical question and the only reply it warranted was a shrug, which he supplied. I sat on the floor engrossed in the empty space before me. He lay stretched out on the couch looking sturdy and sure. Maybe no man is an island, but some sure look like one. All safe and dry and looming on your horizon. But the current was against me and who was I kidding? His island was already inhabited and here I was, a teenaged trespasser. All I had to do was make the most of being adrift.

He yawned. I looked at him with a minimal amount of expectancy. He looked over at me, and I had to look away. I didn’t want him to see that I “belonged to him”—it was bad enough that I knew it. I didn’t want him to know it, too. I kept it from myself for almost 2 months now, calling it everything from “physical” to a big mistake. Not that it wasn’t those things, it was, but when I “gave myself to him”—Merry Christmas, baby—I gave myself for a while, not just for a good time.