He had eyes of thunder and a mind of lightning. He engulfed me like thunderous seas under open skies in the palm of its midnight hand. He was more natural, more basic, more fundamental than the atom itself. When he blinked, the moon turned sideways ashamed that it could not shine as bright, that it could not be as translucent. He was the type of man that made women question God. With his limbs stronger than the bark of summer's oldest trees, he amused me. I used to whisper his name into the dark and it would light up a room. He was the miracle between my lips.
I met him years ago when I was still knock kneed and cumbersome. I was still a virgin then, breasts barely peaking over the horizon of my own puberty and he was just a boy. Student-athletes always walked home together because at the end of the day, we were the only ones left. We laughed our way home through city blocks with our sore legs and gym bags. Sometimes, he was my only friend especially when my teenage mind convinced me that I was my own enemy. For years, we lived this way with the sun setting and rising on our friendship seasoning it with depth and the ability to soar, sometimes simultaneously. But I was just fourteen in a time where friendships didn't require much. All I had ever asked was for him to walk nine blocks.
The walk home got shorter and shorter as the years passed. We were reaching for the fork in the road where we would go our separate ways and that we did. I might have missed him more if I had to walk the same way but I moved and the location of home changed. I hated him for a moment though, for being so afraid of a new route or a new home. I even argued with him because I thought he was too great to keep hiding in spaces he had already memorized. To me, he was just trying to be a big fish in a small pond but he didn't think New York City was a small pond at all. I left and he stayed. We only had more miles in between us than years but the space felt good. It was hard to bloom with him right next to me. He kept blocking my sun but that didn't mean I couldn't rest in his cool shade for a little while longer.
Anyway, once the line in my cleavage was noticeable and my hair a little straighter, I came back home a different woman. Had my feet arched like the dip in my spine and my pale, dull skin had been sanded down to a smooth brown. That's what life had done to me. I returned to my walk home with a different movement. High school was farther away than I understood. I remembered how I walked those city blocks as a virgin, untouched and unenthused with whatever men were offering. I was empty of experience but never hungry for heartbreak. But my return? I was walking home with years on me, with scars beneath my clothes, with weight on my hips and no baby in my womb. I had gained years but I had also lost a few. The men on the block watched me sway to the music in my head.
"Yo T, you look good mama"
"Baby girl, look at you now"
"You not that skinny cheerleader no more huh?"
I laughed at their comments. Men had a way of feeding you without nourishing you so not even their compliments could swell me. I looked around feeling naked without my friend, wondering how this walk had been the best part of most of my days. I didn't have his phone number though and I figured he could be anywhere in the world. Chances were that he was probably right here in New York and for the first time, I would agree with him that this was not a small pond at all.
Later that night, I sifted through the masses of people in the lounge. Nina had convinced me to put on my favorite silk pumps and go out with her considering she was only in town for the night. I grumbled the entire way until I saw her face. She was one of those friends I would do anything for. She was like a fairy godmother to me. No matter how ugly or how poor I had been, she was always trying to convince me that I was a queen and eventually, the clock struck twelve and the reality was that I indeed had a crown to wear. We mingled, seeing old friends from all different walks of life. I saw people from high school, college, work, it was like a playground for adults. I stared over the balcony to soak in the moment. It was a good night. I danced and laughed to all the beautiful sounds alumni life had to offer. I looked around recognizing that my friends and I were indeed the cream of the crop. We were paying for those years in college with glasses of champagne and unlimited kisses on the dance floor. I was in a daze thinking about all we had to go through just to watch three lonely stars above the New York skyline. But when I blinked and saw who was standing in front of me, the skyline was no longer as interesting.
He was well over six feet tall standing in front of me with an entire wine bottle in his hand. I could see right through his eyes even with his glasses on and his white teeth interrupted the darkness of the lounge. His shoulders were broad and squared off the perfect symmetry of his dark goatee. I think I stopped breathing for a moment. I stepped from behind the balcony and stood right in front of him never saying a word. He looked at me wearing my black and white, short, patterned skirt with a low cut, peach shirt with embellished shoulders and loose curls falling past my shoulders. When I was sure that he had taken in all of my scenery, I initiated the first conversation in six years.
"I'll give you a moment" and it took him a moment alright.
"T!"
I smiled, not knowing whether to be offended or happy that it took him a moment to recognize me. Had I changed that much?
"You're all grown up. You got your grown man weight." We laughed because we both knew how skinny he was.
"You look good! You look good," he said. "You don't look like you had a baby at all. Damn."
"Thank you." We laughed again. My 'baby' weight had only turned into curves and perky breasts, thank the Lord for that.
We spoke briefly, exchanged numbers and I wished him a safe ride home. He was still in New York like I expected but he was a little way out of the city now. It was an awkward moment because I was sure that I had more to say, but the last thing my lips were trying to do was talk. I exhaled, spun around and looked for Nina. Whatever happened or whatever was going to happen was all because of her and I owed her a thank you and another glass of whatever she was drinking.
Months flew by and we kept in touch by catching up. We traded stories about undergrad and life after high school. We had taken totally different paths to end up on the same road. It was apparent that he had become a man in those years - a man with things to be proud of and things to not be so proud of. He was not the scrawny track star from the high school up the street and I was not the bubbly cheerleader anymore. I was delicate and still unsure of what I needed from the people around me and he was confident and content with not needing anyone. We decided to meet somewhere in the middle and planned a weekend together.
We laid in bed talking about past lovers and future kids. He thought I was more experienced than I was, hoping that I broke out of my shell since our time in high school. Though some things had changed, some things had stayed the same. I told him that I had fallen in love one time but I had yet to feel as passionate about sex as I had about the partner. He had sensed the disconnect and even asked me about it but I had no answer for him. Though sex was between two people, I had always been the one just following the rules. I never initiated it and I never really understood it. Once I took my panties off, I had become a different person, just a character. I felt like I was always a variable. We could be having sex but you could be having that same sex with anyone else. I had never defined my own sex, my own likes and dislikes, my own needs and wants. Whatever my partner wanted, I was fine with because I wanted my partner. But there I was lying in bed with him wanting much more. I was feeling a deep sense of intrigue with him, something I had never felt before. It was something about the way he looked at me that made me feel like he understood who I was before I realized I had a vagina and was somehow that much more worthy. I just laid there in the midst of conversation drifting off between what we were saying and what I was feeling.
And then he kissed me, with lips so soft, I finally understood what clouds felt like. I actually closed my eyes and exhaled at the thought that I was kissing someone and enjoying it. Nervousness had crept in between us but this kiss was telling me that the moon might stay in the sky just a little longer to witness whatever he had in store for me. We kissed for what seemed like eternity, moments of borrowed time, stolen minutes we would never return. His dark hands canvassed my body hugging new curves. He left his fingerprints in my thighs and he drew the outline of my ribs. His hands carved the woman out of the girl. When I felt his chest on my chest, I knew then that he had taken my breath away. There was enough of him to breathe for the both of us anyway. His heart beat between my two breasts like the sound God makes when he's tapping his fingers on the axle of the earth to remind it to keep spinning. I never knew that two people could become their own melody. I held his face in my hands as it attached itself to my face. Reading his features like braille, I had memorized him in the palm of my hands, so whenever this moment was over, I would still be able to carry him with me and wash my skin with the memory of his. And when he entered me, I exhaled, I was losing a virginity to him. I was back in my seventeen year old self feeling something forbidden, feeling something unwritten. This was the first sex that I didn't feel like I was losing my innocence, not my dignity and not even myself. I had found something in him, something very unexpected. I had even found pieces of a woman in the reflection of his eyes. He had known me before I was broken, before bad lovers and unfulfilled promises. He had known me when I was kind and naive and where others had taken advantage or where it went unnoticed, he was paying me full attention. I didn't feel like he could have this sex with anyone else. This was my sex, our sex and he was the miracle between my lips.
I can't tell you what love is though. I can only tell you what it feels like.
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