Big Hands
I just want to be looked after. I want a lap to rest my head in, or a shoulder to rest my head on. I want some big and gentle hands to cradle my skull, let me know that they are there to be surrendered to, my whole weight if I need. Let me know that I could sleep there, anywhere, for days and that they would carry me, palm to neck, fingers splayed up to skull, from the car, into the house, and bed. From the train, into the office, and chair. That they could hold me all day, up to the ergonomic folds, press the small of my back to the accommodating curve, let my knees rest lower than my hips, work my hands along the keyboard in a precision achieved through synergy.
I want someone who knows what is best for me, to decide on an end point of appropriate success and who knows every move I must make in order to get there. Someone who always knows what to play in the car. When to snap bottles of champagne in celebration.
I want him to want to look after me, to be his sole purpose. Him, God of one.
And until the point of admission, submission that he can, and will, and was destined to look after me, I want to be played games with. I want a lasso gaze cast out to wrangle my reluctant eyes up. Break from the gaze of your boring exchange briefly, to count five, an intentional - “alright” then reengage dryly with eyes who watch me now, wondering.
I will second guess myself ruthlessly, tear my skin past my nail and down my fingers which wait anxiously for the text back. Cantering horses will pace out my heart rate when I see him, or when I don’t see him though he said I would.
I will pander to an avoidant attachment style. Wait and wait and wait for messages, physically restrain myself from sending more than one, though it has been five hours, and I have thought at least 45 times of sending other messages. I will learn, (I’m sure I will eventually learn) to take all of the value I need from the positive and well-intentioned “Great”s and “Can’t wait to see you”s and I won’t feel shut out when I read the long letters he writes to other people, totally unrelated people, who he feels so compelled to reach out to and reassure and build up and advise. He knows nothing about my life, except for what i tell him, and I am sure he cares about me. Barely remembering like, "oh shit yeah how was that" or "oh shit yeah how are they".
And I won’t feel confused or upset when he shows up to see me on crutches for an injury that I could not point to, let alone describe the origin of, and then not really know what to do with the sympathy that I feel, which somehow seems fake to extend since I have no idea what has happened, and to ask feels like overstepping since the information wasn’t extended freely, and still isn’t being extended freely, though there has very clearly been an incident of potentially quite serious magnitude which would very likely have involved a trip to the hospital, perhaps even A&E and time off work and if something like that happened to me I would not even reach a feeling of obligation (which dwells deep in the gut) to tell him but much more immediately be compelled to tell him (which fizzes, spurred by incident, to the top).
And I will do this until I just can’t take it anymore, until I can’t handle the cowardly, cape-pulling retreat, the disappearing into the bushes at any uncomfortable topic. And then I will look again for a molehill of care in the pupils of a gaze holding mine past the count of 4, in an interested question, or an invitation, a kindly decorated recollection of some dusty detail I had dredged up and felt embarrassed about.
Then I dream violently of him. Wake with his gentle arm around me, weight with no force, as it was in the tiered warehouse where we lay five hours ethereal, non-existent, and as I will feel it draped around me at various times - tugging at my sleeve to get coffee, wrapped and supporting like a seatbelt for the crash. It will feel like inhaling smoke for the first time; ticklish and illicit. And this is what I need. A preoccupation. A thought to fall asleep to, and not just post-midnight - a thought to fall asleep to awake, like meditation, an ohm of consistent frequency, that I may tune into, set my course against with simple wins and losses. I rest my head to the car window and sleep again.
We lock eyes, and walk away unrecognised. We lock arms and spin, commence our repetition.