back to my writing exercises

i closed my eyes, opened the dictionary and put my hand on a word, any word.  this word is supposed to be written on a blank, white page.  it is to be 'a bit of sun caught in a sunflower: it is petal and center, aura and corolla.'  


the word i found is CESSION: 1. an act of ceding or surrendering as of territory to another country by treaty.  2. a ceded territory.


i am to pick another word: PENITENTIARY: 1.  a prison for those convicted of major crimes. 2 pertaining to or used for punishment or reform of criminals or wrongdoers. 3. resulting in or punishable by imprisonment in a penitentiary.


and finally i am to give you two pages of the breath, the sounds, the alpha and omega of these words as my memory and my heart allows.


his limbs covered me in his sweat.  we were warring for two years trying to find a plea bargain that would suit both of our wants and yet had nothing to do with our needs.  my breath had gone quiet under his rising ribcage.  
babe.
i looked at him with the eyes of an opponent.  babe had died a long time ago. babe was three years ago. babe was young, naive and spent long walks on shores she never knew he couldn't reach. my eyes wouldn't even open just so i could see things a little clearer, just so i could hold him a little nearer, just so i didn't have to face the devil right away. i looked at the back of my eyelids and i took in his scent that had been holding me prisoner for more nights than days.  i smelled his cologne, his deodorant, his after shave, his deceit and almost hurled the memories right off my tongue.  i wanted to curse him out ever so gently, moan my displeasing thoughts into his ears and ride his d.ck off into the sunset because sex is a forgiveness not even his sins could carry.
he called out babe again like she had been missing, like her face was on the back of a milk carton in someone's fridge feeding little hungry boys something to go with their cookies. he searched for me underneath my breasts to see if he heard a heartbeat but broken hearts can't beat.  he searched in between my thighs and whispered how wet i was.  i whispered back, those are tears at the end of their journey.
he clawed his fingers into my ribs, 'i made you.'
indeed he was right. he made me…angry. i wanted to rip out the rib i borrowed from him because i no longer needed it to protect a heart that didn't beat, that didn't even pulsate at the thought of his chest hovering over it.  i did not need that f.cking rib i borrowed out of his dirt.  i was certainly made in the image of his humanity. i was certainly made in the mold of his modernity. i was certainly made in the new age of his bullsh.t.  never realizing that as bullsh.t gets old, so do i. and i felt my wrinkles under his words because i was spending so much time frowning that crow's feet were leaving their tracks all over that face that was so reminiscent of 'babe.'  he would not accept my surrender.  he would not take my cession that did not seek any remorse in exchange.  he could not believe that i wanted nothing from the man that had taken everything.
babe.
i curled up into the quietest parts of my soul, my skin marked by his shadow.  our love had high, brick walls.  trapped by heavy stone and punished by heavier acts, i was trapped in my own penitentiary of affairs. our sweat was the last of our faithfulness.  our silence was signal of knowing that all the words in the world could never find themselves in an order like we had. laid out in front of each other but not easily translated.  we no longer spoke languages of love or metaphors of music.  we were cold mirrors of ourselves repeating phrases from years before that habit had replaced its meaning.  i watched him, still very handsome but so ugly with his intent.  he had been with other women. he might have even loved one or two but nowhere in that equation did i fit.  nowhere did our one plus one equal two anymore.  
babe. 
and my skin crawled for the last time trying to make more love than i lost.  there were parts of him i still recognized with my eyes closed, the sound of his eyelids opening and closing, his breath filtering through his teeth, his heart beating through his chest.  there were so many things i had memories of, artifacts of our relationship, statues of our crumbling emotions, replicas of our majesty.
i watched our legs tangle from the web we weaved and decided i would not be his prey anymore.  morning would no longer come after me.
babe.
'these are my terms and conditions, i need you out.  from in between my thighs and out from the crevices of my mind. i need you to accept the cession of me from you which states that you can keep all that you took from me, without taking me with you.  there will be no visits in this penitentiary of possibility.  babe is gone. and we both will miss her but it makes no sense for both of us to be trapped behind my walls.