KJPcreations

There is something forgiving by the touch of love as it seduces your senses and tickles you into believing in immortality. We all need to be touched and feel the loving gaze of something outside of ourselves; the early bloom of spring or the smiling gaze of the stranger we brush past at the grocery store. A tear recalls this touch in both fondness and regret. We never know when it’s our last touch. It works kind of funny that way.

Today, a little someone wanted to hold my hand. Tiny precious fingers clutching mine to remind me that I mean, that I am alive, that I am adored. Her smile forgives all my ugly, and I understand briefly the miracle a child brings into our lives. They love purely. A child rests upon my hips and I feel their purpose for the first time, these hips of mine. They long for the connection between function and child. If my hips could smile, they smiled today. Today, my hips meant something more than sex or shame. Today, my body was artful and vibrant.

My eyes rest upon reflection rarely these days. Age is here. I mean the word actually affects my life: slow down, be responsible, moisturize, drink more water, save, and take fish oil supplements. Whatever. I fear I am forgetting everything. Remember that night you met one of the Nelson brothers – the cute one – and then you called him drunk later on that night? Or the time you took ecstasy with some upcoming, young commercial director and bled all over his sheets. You started your period in your sleep and stained his mattress. He never called again after that night. Remember the coke binge night with the sax player? You made love outside, in several places, and you both fell asleep watching “The Wiz.” You awoke, lost in the maze of a mansion in the Hollywood hills, and found your clothes scattered all over the driveway. You came home with a rash, later to be defined (by your dermatologist) as the “hot tub rash.” You couldn’t hook up for weeks after, well, at least until the rash went away. And then there was the twenty-one year old from Dre’s camp. He liked for you to pick him up from the music studio and bring him back to your place for red wine and frolic. Funny, he stills calls you now, years later, but he is forever twenty-one in your mind. And you never return his calls.

Touch is funny in that it can be apologetic and hopeful. It defines us, really. The people in our lives give us definition. If the definition is too painful, then we erase it. If the definition is pleasing, we embrace it.

I’m not so sure how to sort it all out. My birthday is in a few weeks, and with it comes an age I am not so sure how to sort out. I wish for peace of mind and for kindness. My mistakes have been heavy and I wish too have paid enough by now. I think so. I think my debt has been spoken for. For now, I hold your hand and love transcends. For now, I lift you up and your body rests upon my hip and remembers my strength, my love. Thank you for the smiles. In this now, you don’t know me so well. I am just beginning to know myself. It works kind of funny that way.