His teeth, and centres of each lip, were a reddish black from all the wine. âWeâll get away from everywhere,âhe promised him.âWeâll hear the sound of silence. Weâll feel life .â
Owen nodded, dismissing his drunken father.
âI know youâre only in grade eight, but you understand me, donât you, about feeling life? â
WELCOMING WANDERING EYES
July 18th, 2008,
At the cabin, restless in bed.
I just woke from the same dream again. My insides are made of garbage and my bones are rusted metal. It hurts to move. My fingernails are cracked and stinging. I dream my heart is burning. I can see my heart burning inside my chest, but I canât bend my arms to put out the flames. Iâve lost everything and I canât find it. I am in the middle of nowhere and canât find my way back to something familiar. And as soon as I realize I donât even know what Iâm looking for, I wake up.
Today in the car I saw Owen pretending to read an old magazine while we drove. I wasnât convinced. I know he canât read while the TV or stereo is on, he says itâs too distracting, so how could he read while Alexâs audio CD was playing so loudly? And he was staring at the same page for fifteen minutes, and I know him well enough to know that nothing in that lame magazine could get his attention for any longer than a minute.
I wanted to think that Owen was only pretending to be reading that magazine. That what he was really doing was staring at my cleavage when I wasnât looking. It really seemed that way. I didnât notice how low my tank top was lying until I saw his eyes darting on and off my breasts in the rearview mirror, in bursts he thought were too quick for me to feel them there. I slugged the shoulder of that tank top down farther, to loosen the cling of it against me. Itâs not my fault if the wind blew it open and Owen was watching. Itâs not my fault that I felt good being noticed. I tell myself the diet is for me, and the exercise, and all the fashion magazines. And maybe I do do it all for myself, but maybe itâs because Iâve forgotten what it feels like to be noticed. To feel eyes on you like that â and know what they want â is empowering, enlivening. Reassuring.
Alex is never home anymore, and when he is he has an endless list of excuses: too tired, too hot, too cold, too busy. Yet there is more porn on his laptop than on any college kidâs computer. He doesnât even hide it. Does he think I donât notice, or that I donât care? Am I not beautiful anymore, or is he just too used to me? I guess itâs like eating the same sandwich every day for lunch. I guess heâs sick of me that same way. Him still being attracted to me after years of marriage would be like him eating the same sandwich every day for years and pretending to still like that ham-on-rye. I donât know if I can really even blame him. Blah.
But I refuse to be mustard on the tongue. To lack flavour.
So I make no apologies for enjoying the desire in Owenâs eyes, because it was the way he was looking at me: not because they were breasts and he is male, but because they were my breasts. It made me feel beautiful and desirable, like someone worth secretly admiring. It made me feel like Iâve been dead for years now. His eyes wrapped themselves around me, whispered everything I needed to hear, and brought me back to life. All that in ten seconds.
I felt his eyes on me like hands. Did he feel me feeling them there?
Feeling his eyes on me felt as good as sex. Better even. Because nothing feels better than wanting. To want something, nine times out of ten, feels better than having it. There is more passion in a shared look between two potential lovers than there is in sex, in my experience. In my experience, we have the most lust, passion, and desire for someone before we start sleeping with them. In my experience, men fuck
Owen nodded, dismissing his drunken father.
âI know youâre only in grade eight, but you understand me, donât you, about feeling life? â
WELCOMING WANDERING EYES
July 18th, 2008,
At the cabin, restless in bed.
I just woke from the same dream again. My insides are made of garbage and my bones are rusted metal. It hurts to move. My fingernails are cracked and stinging. I dream my heart is burning. I can see my heart burning inside my chest, but I canât bend my arms to put out the flames. Iâve lost everything and I canât find it. I am in the middle of nowhere and canât find my way back to something familiar. And as soon as I realize I donât even know what Iâm looking for, I wake up.
Today in the car I saw Owen pretending to read an old magazine while we drove. I wasnât convinced. I know he canât read while the TV or stereo is on, he says itâs too distracting, so how could he read while Alexâs audio CD was playing so loudly? And he was staring at the same page for fifteen minutes, and I know him well enough to know that nothing in that lame magazine could get his attention for any longer than a minute.
I wanted to think that Owen was only pretending to be reading that magazine. That what he was really doing was staring at my cleavage when I wasnât looking. It really seemed that way. I didnât notice how low my tank top was lying until I saw his eyes darting on and off my breasts in the rearview mirror, in bursts he thought were too quick for me to feel them there. I slugged the shoulder of that tank top down farther, to loosen the cling of it against me. Itâs not my fault if the wind blew it open and Owen was watching. Itâs not my fault that I felt good being noticed. I tell myself the diet is for me, and the exercise, and all the fashion magazines. And maybe I do do it all for myself, but maybe itâs because Iâve forgotten what it feels like to be noticed. To feel eyes on you like that â and know what they want â is empowering, enlivening. Reassuring.
Alex is never home anymore, and when he is he has an endless list of excuses: too tired, too hot, too cold, too busy. Yet there is more porn on his laptop than on any college kidâs computer. He doesnât even hide it. Does he think I donât notice, or that I donât care? Am I not beautiful anymore, or is he just too used to me? I guess itâs like eating the same sandwich every day for lunch. I guess heâs sick of me that same way. Him still being attracted to me after years of marriage would be like him eating the same sandwich every day for years and pretending to still like that ham-on-rye. I donât know if I can really even blame him. Blah.
But I refuse to be mustard on the tongue. To lack flavour.
So I make no apologies for enjoying the desire in Owenâs eyes, because it was the way he was looking at me: not because they were breasts and he is male, but because they were my breasts. It made me feel beautiful and desirable, like someone worth secretly admiring. It made me feel like Iâve been dead for years now. His eyes wrapped themselves around me, whispered everything I needed to hear, and brought me back to life. All that in ten seconds.
I felt his eyes on me like hands. Did he feel me feeling them there?
Feeling his eyes on me felt as good as sex. Better even. Because nothing feels better than wanting. To want something, nine times out of ten, feels better than having it. There is more passion in a shared look between two potential lovers than there is in sex, in my experience. In my experience, we have the most lust, passion, and desire for someone before we start sleeping with them. In my experience, men fuck
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