She’d melt in my hand if I just called her Princess right now. But that tattoo just below her navel, of that word her Father used to call her, that one word that means so much, that if I said it right now, leaning my head in, lips hanging just off her ear, and whispered that one word, she would be mine, and I could fxck her all I wanted. But it’s tattooed on. And it was her Father’s word for her. Let some other kid taint that word forever.
How do you tell someone you hardly know that you see yourself at their deathbed? That you like this peron, see yourself with this person, can picture them as thee person, gowned in white, accompanying you at the end of the aisle, to have and hold, raising children, fighting, laughing, growing old. That when they get cancer that eats away at their insides, that you’re there helping through the maniacle, suicidal fits, cleaning messes from her unempowered bowels, telling her green, sticky face how beautiful she still is. That you will cry like a baby at her death-bed. Biting the sheets, tears streaming down cheeks, walking outside and cursing the site of an apple tree. This girl that you’ve seen all this with: how do you ask this person on a date.
She invites me over by telling me not to come. When I arrive she looks me up and down. I told you not to come, she says. I shrug. I hear things, I say. She shrugs with one shoulder, lays back in bed, evoking sympathy. I mock her gently, and underneath her looks of hatred she’s smiling. It’s deep down though: you wouldn’t notice. She watching a movie, one we’ve already seen together. We sit at the edge of her bed and don’t speak. She doesn’t move except to avoid me. We watch in silence, steady in our thoughts, comfortable with the world, when the credits roll. There’s an awkward feeling, an awareness of impending … something. Which I am comfortable with, but the waves she emits are tense. The screen goes black. The room stands still, a giant click erupts then is dead; I hear her breathing has stopped. No noise, no lights, no steady rhythm of the VCR, nothing. For a few brief moments nothing exists except the two of us, and the awareness of the vast space of emptiness that we will never fill. Then the VCR clicks again, slicing through the air and clamping our thoughts. I see something in her flinch, and she crawls backwards under the sheets and faces away from me. I linger, contemplating the time, waiting for all her being to be focused solely on me then stand and click off the TV. I strip to my boxers on the way back and slink in behind her. She forms perfectly against my body, my arm around her side, her back-side in my crotch, my chin pressed against her shoulder. We lay a long time, and I hear her breaths, so strong, so strong, so forcably rhythmic. I let her continue to spite me for awhile then lean in and kiss her neck. Raise and kiss her jaw. Raise and kiss her cheek. I look her directly in the eye though all our eyes are closed. “I love you, Marilyn,” I say. She breathes deep and holds herself tighter against me, letting go of her fears, not needing to be strong; she’s now allowed to just be. And she can rest easy now, and soon drifts to sleep. And it couldn’t be a more perfect moment. Not even if I had meant it.
