Holding Back

Sometimes, no maybe all the time, and a lesson learned while married, I hold back and withdraw when I want to pull in tight and close and squeeze with all my might.  I never wanted to appear clingy, I wanted him to feel as though he had the freedom to do as he would, and in the end he would choose me.  I could not have been more wrong.  I just want to have my passion bleed out my pores like it always does.  But I stopper it up, cannot have all that power, it scares people away.  Right?  Sometimes it even scares me.  A hand that is placed on the hip, a leg that is touching a leg and 3 small soft kisses.  Holding back.  While I imagine myself running and jumping into waiting arms, my hands pulling you close, and 100 kisses as my body intertwines with yours, I wait for your body to turn and for your strong arms to be wrapped around me, a kiss on the back of my head, my shoulder.  The night is dark and I am bleeding though I do not know it.  Like a mosquito bite that has been scratched too much in the dark.  I draw trouble onto myself a clarion call for all takers in scenting vicinity.  I go to the fair, thinking I am ordinary, but more than one man smiles and says hello in that way a woman knows is an acknowledgement.  But only one man has my heart.  I cannot breath it to him.  All that passion it scares people.  Right?  It scares the hell out of me.  But as one wine slushy is drunk and then another and then another I whisper it in the dark.  I whisper the words from deep inside that iron cased pump that beats and beats gushing all that stickiness.  Its just too sweet, like jack wax, a little vinegar is called for to keep you from getting nauseous from it.  We are parting and as we leave each other we pass back and forth between us all the fruits we have, a few apples for you, two peaches and an exotic fruit for me.  An ear of corn, some seed pods and peppers.  Later I chop the peppers and save them for the winter and I feel inspired to give more.  In the falling rain, drenching rain, you come in without knocking and take the oven hot bread that is offered.  And kiss me 10 times with lips that are so sweet.  But all this blood has scared you and I feel foolish for the leaving.  The blood of shame is on my cheeks.  In the dark, though it is hot and the fan is on my back, which cannot bear being cold, I want to throw my arms around you, instead I lie awake for hours wondering what my life would be like if I did not hold back.  Wondering what other fine mistakes I can make.  Wondering if you will lie to me every day for a year or for ten.  And tell me you love me moments before you pack your clandestine suitcase.  Fuck all this brutality.  Fuck how insignificant it makes me feel.  I want not my ego to be assuaged, but to have peace from this constant litany.  I hold back only because it all scares the shit out of me.  But what I want more than anything is for you to see that I don’t mean to go only until Sunday at 11:59 pm.  But I tell you to give me til Sunday, because if I happen to say that there might be some significant time that I am willing to commit to, I feel like I have just dropped a bucket of spiders on my bare belly.  I am really just waiting, for you to turn your body to mine and for you to wrap your strong arms around me.  Because underneath your calloused hand, and the soft skin of my breast is the iron cased heart of me, holding back.  I need to see what fruits we are passing between us, and to know that if my back is turned to you, that you will draw me in, or that when my hand is only resting on your hip that you will press in to me wanting more.  And when I see this I find my eyes closing and in the early hours of the morning, I fall deeply asleep.