His mouth hung open, blue-grey smoke twisting between the slit, cigarette caught in the pinch of his thumb. The guitar sat comfortably in his lap, shoulders hunched to tighten strings. He held it with reverence, thumb stroking idly at the wood. Somewhere in the grain ventured sleepy absolution.

I sat close. Close, but far away. On the periphery of every margin. Tucked safe to watch, to listen, just to see the soft tilt of his mouth working wet against the filter. Baby-fine and gentle; mic a thief to trap each rasping breath. And from so close, so far, my fingers burned to grace his pulse. Nothing more. No other license offered except his beat. Strong, caged life harbored beneath muscle, vein, and skin.

Quiet, legs crossed, hands captured over knee, I shut my eyes and waited for the first whiskey stroke of his voice, gravel-rough, cavern-deep. To

touch
touch
touch
touch
touch me everywhere. The shiver-shock whispering. Mushroom-blossom passion ghosting over bone.

Then he started to sing. Savage-sweet, mellow-smooth. Drunk on it. On life. On love. The boundless proximal... energy. Veteran fingertips fathering a background lower than his voice. The two soldiering the onus of lights and stage, severed from the crowd.

He finished. To an audience wail. Sweat damp hair, eyes like sea-stone. Beautiful, tumultuous coldness. And I considered. For one concentrated second, I considered. Becoming all the things I abhor. Becoming, for pleasure’s sake, the Aphrodite. Lullable siren in the zero hour.

To feel breath and voice and body. Soft, angry, hard. I considered.

And still... I left the room with nothing but the smoke and sound.

I’m almost too drunk to know what’s really going on... almost. His hand’s around my waist and he’s laughing in my ear, but all I can hear is my balanced heartbeat. A liquefied rhythm that’s been with me throughout the ages...

There’s nothing quiet... nothing clandestine between us. It’s closer and closer to the groups, neither of us capable of melting into the shallow. And I realize I’m over my head, my cocky smile barely the safer save, his hands possessively drawing me away; dragging me towards the obvious void; the blue-black tranquility in “back.” He sings:

“Got a head full of one way rides...
that you won’t believe.
A giant leap from your heart to my arms
Before it’s time to leave”

The cold air makes its ways across my skin, slightly in advance of his play, blazing a scorching trail through my bloodstream with the alcohol adrenaline as he sings:

“Got a ticket on a Sunday drive
In the afternoon
There's nothing quite like your Indian smile
To relay my blues”

His kiss is slow, and I swear to fucking god I can feel his pulse against my lips. I open my mouth, twist my tongue around his, and it’s hot and fast and makes me think of anise and guarantees.

The world spins quick when I close my eyes....

Best to never shut them.

Oh inertia, carry me along.

Last night, after one Jäger Bomb too many, I told my husband that we're like a Spirograph. Together, we're the boldest image that forms in the center, the one that shapes itself with the heavy pressure of the pen. And that everything that rotates around it is just noise. Moving patterns, left, right, circles round and round, but in the middle, we're the defined lineation.

He laughed and told me he knew exactly what I meant, but he promised me he would remind me of my drunken comparison in the morning. He didn't need to, I remembered. I rarely forget my plastered ruminations.

Here's to finding your Spirographs in the world, if you haven't found them already.