A Touch Crazy

In her notebook she writes: The Things I Miss about Him 1. The way he holds things. As compassion, they're the aphrodisiac, a potent elixir. From the seat of her chair, he is all ears. And eyes. And hands. Yes, hands. Appendages steepled, clasped in contemplation or lingering at his cheek. They empathize better than words, more like an artist’s brush: She watches them, feels them trail across skin with the promise of emotional deliverance so riveted with a rush that range from a fluttery crush to full-on erotic fixation Venus disarmed by Cupid's bow. His sympathetic hands makes her hot, as he points with his finger, drawn to the rhythm as palms pontificate turned upward opened to release hand-made pleasures. She is so susceptible to those visceral little bows as he paint finger portraits. Internal chatter is uncensored as she hangs on his every gesture. Every move is felt. And she loves when he purse his lips; left with a verbal hang-over, fraught like a guilt-racked poet swapping second-rate sonnets, a teenage misfit bent on self-destruction; a passionate follower with a fervor bordering on predatory... Yet. Invisible. as the option of his desire- Provoking a crisis of the heart. She is not central to his conflict which Freud cannot even diagnose. Instead she's a case study in erotic transference like a patient who develops feelings for the therapist that becomes a two-way street crossed with intimacy triggered by connection. She is the gushing and gratuitous, the effusive thankfulness of one who is happy to have someone pay attention to them. As most would rather YOU hear their story than grant their wish. until you fall in love... until you fall in love with anyone who is good at listening. But there are more times than not when book-jammed fingers are more confessional than battle-scarred. And stiletto-sharp word play that provokes a tumult of responses open old wounds. Words she can barely express puncture the silence...arrows shot at the heart she refuses to pick up But a saint, HE is not. Like the recovering love addict whose touch becomes the pain reliever, the medicatation for the minds of minor poets as a flurry of words buried in the depth of pockets are let loose at annoyance, unhinged by feelings at his own weakness for falling in love. Yet pained by her own imperfections, she learns to cope. Her attractive qualities are not panties and pearls, but those piccadillos that are as potent as the perfect rose... Vulnerable. A real person who wakes up in the middle of the night in a hormonal sweat, reaching for purpose. Somebody who knows how fragile they are because she’s so fragile herself. Him, with hands almost too expressive, almost as much as those pings that churn like pistons in perennial turmoil. Those are the times she just wants to say I’ll take care of you. Instead she roots for victory. Because part of the appeal is that the beauty the eye sees, the hands want to know it. and hands that once seemed to open up the heavens like the flourish of a painter's brush now opens up to exposed frailties and the realization that maybe he's not god after all. -Karma