Flaw Salad

I saw you on the street today. It’s strange because you’ve been on my mind lately. I’m not sure how it happened or when, but I’ve been thinking about you.

Oh, wait. I remember. It was after the new boy failed me. That was it. I presented myself to him and stood there, ready, an hors d’oeuvre on a platter, and he became meek, uncertain, shy. Instead of grabbing me like you would, he laid timid kisses on my lips, held his hands lightly on my arms, and waited for me to lead. You never would have waited. You would have known what to do.

Your old power got me thinking. Your old power got me wanting. And then I saw you hustling down the street.

You didn’t see me, I think. You would have looked my way. You would have stared me down like an animal because you’re a brute, a bull, and you wouldn’t have let me pass so unblemished. No, you certainly didn’t see me. I can’t imagine it. I still know you better than that.

Funny how the months pass so quickly, isn’t it? How many since we’ve spoken, yet it seems so like yesterday, like time never bothered at all.

My thumbs hover over your number sometimes. I think how easy it would be to let you back in. You, the toxic poison. You, the punishment I thought I deserved. In low moments, I long for the whip of your tongue.

Did you really have so much power, or did I make you into my own personal villain? I suppose it doesn’t matter now.

When I hold that sweet boy sometimes, the earnest and lovely boy, and stroke his hair, petting him like a sedated cat, I wish for the lion, for an unyielding hand around my throat, for the extraordinary weight of you, like 250 pounds of hatred pressing into me, making me small, small, invisible. I could sink into the mattress and be nothing, but that wasn’t really what you wanted from me. You were a tool I used as much as you used me. I was a punching bag, and you were the desperately desired blows.

You walked by without noticing me today, and it stoked the old longing, the old embers still glowing under layers of settled ash.

Tonight as my hand travels southward, reaching for that shudder into sleep, I’ll imagine yours and the incomparable rush of surrender, the joy I felt in the pain of you, and I’ll quash with ruthless determination any idea of moving you from the realm of perfect, unfettered fantasy.