We Were the Sunrise

Your room was cold when we sat down and decided to let each other in. You don't know this-- have no way to know-- but every man that has shared a bed with me has received similar words from me. We sit on the bed and not the couch. The room is never as cold, and I'm never as kind. But the message is the same. I have strict barriers, I am willing to let you partly in, nothing else is available for negotiation, take it or leave. They never leave. Not once. I didn't, either. I said what you wanted to hear even though I am irremediably open to you. You kissed me. It is once again you unto me. It is at this point that I usually already know how deep the other person will fall, and in response will take the necessary precautions, set up some contentions, shield them from unnecessary harm. I protect them from the unstoppable force I am. It is true that I sometimes miscalculate, underestimating at the earlier stages what will end up being, on their end, deeper and more involved than I initially thought. I regret the pain that follows, knowing that I could have avoided at least part of it, but also knowing that the heart is resilient, that they will eventually move on. What has never so far happened, M, is the opposite. I have never been unable to establish the temperature of someone's heart, and be able to estimate the potential for breaking it, the amount of care they will unleash on me, the extent to which they (and I) need to be safeguarded against. Until you.

I say that you are difficult to read, but what I mean is that I have not yet learned your language. I do not yet know how to translate your silences and pace into my own way of articulating the world, and so it all seems alien to me, unreachable. You say things, but not to me. Your voice is sheltered, kept safely tucked inside your fortress. And yet. I wonder if it’s this way with every one, with all bodies. It is childish and futile, and still, I wonder. You held me like I was a strand of silk so delicate that it could break at the lightest touch. You cherished me, praised in silence the complex creature that I am, drank me in, slowly and deliberately. You don’t yet love me, but you loved me that night. You were molten honey, warm gold trickling down my tongue, we were the sunrise. My body is a collection of musical notes that need to be sung in two voices. We were a melody, M, resonating in unison, reverberating off each other in perfect rhythm.

Utopia is not a place but a verb. There is no destination, only the daily journey, the restless work of building that other world. If love is not a goal but a work in progress, then we made love that night, M. And for that, I thank you.