No Man's Land

There was a blister on my thumb from flicking that damned cheap black lighter too many times, trying to light wannabe blunts made out of kava because we couldn’t get our hands on any good stuff.  You could order kava online.  It was basically tea.  I slid the tin box with the make believe blunts and the lighter under the bed with the rest of our contraband treasures.  She lined her lips with her tongue and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.  Drugged up on a lack of sleep and an abundance of expensive liquor I stole from my parents, she swayed above the rough water beneath her.  We had practiced this routine before, but that’s all it was – practice.  We were just waiting to cross into the no man’s land to get to the other side.

The other side treated me well in the beginning.  Her kisses were a blend of cognac and raw sugar, her lips supple and eager.  Her hands felt like curtains as they draped themselves over my limbs.  They were petite and velvety.  They tickled the crooks and crevices of my body with delicacy, yet she said she’d never done this before.  Not with a girl.  Not even with a boy. 

I’d kissed people before.  They didn’t feel like this.  They didn’t feel like ecstasy running down your spine, stinging your mind like a lucid high.  They didn’t feel like your stomach was on fire, burning all the way through your fingertips.  No one had compared to her at that point.  That was the problem.

The fervor I tasted on her skin turned my body into molasses.  Her laughter rang of innocence and naivety.  It rushed into my ears, ingraining the sound into my brain.  She burrowed under that blanket with me.  She probably thought that no one would see us that way.  I thought she was afraid.  I didn’t blame her then.  She drew me back in like I was her own personal Jesus.  My breath was holy water, and she wanted to drain it from my body.

She was fully dressed when I wakened.  Scrolling through her phone, apparently avoiding my gaze, she laughed as if nothing happened.  She gathered her stuff together and slipped out the door with nothing more than a brief farewell.

She never apologized.  She never once said “sorry” for reeling me in and leaving me stranded on the other side.  I spent months wondering what it all meant, when in reality, it was just a prime example of the experimental youth. 

I blamed her for gripping my hand and pulling me over the wall to the other side.  There were some nights when I cradled a glass bottle as I imagined her figure above me.  There were other nights when I bled on pages in journals that have long since burned holes in bookshelves.

She used alcohol as a justification to kiss a girl.  I used it to let my secrets drip off my chest.  I made a mess.  I used it to numb the pain as I carved a hole in my stomach to allow someone to come in and know me, as an anesthetic for the surgeries I performed on my heart.  And I may have been her own personal Jesus, but she was my Hail Mary.  She was my last chance at gripping my toes to the earth in fear of floating away. 

            “Well, hello,” she started, embracing me gently.

            “How’s college?” I asked.

“Boring.”

“Come back more often.  I miss you,” I added with a pout.

“I should!  I hear there’s a Starbucks in town now; that’s exciting,” she beamed.

“Yeah, what a time to be alive,” I replied, feeding off of her smile.

Three years later, when I speak to her, I’m still shouting from the other side.  That no man’s land is filled with land mines, waiting for me to hide behind that barricade of isolation.  My soul has opened and melted in other peoples’ hands over the years, and I am content with my choice of hands.