His back used to be a wall I tried to climb.
Erected in front of me nightly, I would squeeze my arm into the tiny space between his elbow and thigh, positioning my body to frame his, much like the thick plastic we used to wrap our notebooks and books in at the beginning of the school year, in the Philippines, as if each cover needed protection, needed lamination against the tropical rain, against the thin polyester and nylon that lined our cheap school backpacks, where the mud seeped through every time we tripped, or fell on our backs like turtles, arms and legs in the air waving helplessly as the weight of our school things pulls us to the ground.
There used to be nights when he’d feel this snake of an arm of mine and welcome it; he’d turn around and put his arm out, no matter how late into the night it was and how early he had to get up in the morning – our schedules always seemed to be on opposite ends of each other – he’d offer an arm and I’d know that was my space, my home, no matter which apartment in the city we lived in – that was my home.
Nowadays, he’d grunt my name out of the corner of his mouth, frustrated at having his light sleep disturbed. On good night he’d still relent, just leave the warning lingering in the air, unspoken, leaving it to me to decide when to give in.
On bad nights, he’d shrug my arm off without a sound. Harmless, and without pain, really. But to me, it’s a violent slap strewn across my face, one that lunges my head backwards, the kind of slap that vibrates my entire body until I feel a knee buckle, but I stand my ground and hold my cheek and stare right back – at nothingness, at darkness, at the great wall of the back that I have in front of me, not even a face to glare at, not a body to receive my reverberating anger.
While I was driving down the trails of Cape Smokey, speeding through the roads at Souris with nothing but the stars and my high beams to light the way, I realized, for the first time in years, that I wasn’t angry, nor resentful. I was heading towards something and I didn’t have to fight for it to be mine. I wasn’t near tears nor was I holding something back inside. I had no care. I missed nobody. It would have been perfect, too perfect, to swerve down a countryside and kick the gas up to 150 km/hour and not let go, and zoom through nothingness without a soul to witness but the bats and the coyotes licking their wounds or feeding on scraps – the perfect audience. It crossed my mind more than once but nothing solid clamped it down. Even of urges, I was freed.
Tonight I find myself wanting.
I am in a maze of walls made of upturned backs and hips splayed to the side, this negative space between our bodies I try so hard to climb across – even the four hour hike up the Skyline trail didn’t take my breath away this hard. Even kayaking with a tripod in between my legs and knees was easier to maneuver than trying to read the reasons behind your words, whether or not you want me to jump, or cower.
Inside me is so much yearning for the one person I could dream a life with together, no matter how foolish, or naive, or senseless in the ways we desperately try to get to know one another knowing it would only end in hate and regret and resentment, I just want to have that chance again–to join a bed that is welcoming and tender, where I don’t have to lie on the far edge, with my arms straight down like a soldier on attention, eyes laser straight forward, stiff and steady, afraid of the slightest chance that they stray to the side and glimpse something that resembles something like hope, but not quite.
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