Trust

I need a lover who will be with me when I need to be gentled. And who will meet my passions like a train smashing a suicidal virgin on the tracks.

Its terribly freudian to hark back to one’s childhood to explain one quirks. However, I have this image which haunts me lately. My sister and I are about 3 and 5, sitting on the makeshift lounge in the dusky dawn light. My parents are in the kitchen. Naked. My mother has the chef’s knife, and my father has the fish knife. They crouch, and slowly circle one another. The anger in the room is tangible, and I know that my father will lose because he is weak and my mother is strong. She has a reason to win. He has nothing, he is out of his depth in every way. I put my arm around my sister’s shoulder and we both sit in wait, not sure what event we are hoping for.

Twenty years later, I am kneeling between my two lovers as they engage in ideological warfare over my welfare. There is the irresistibly needy black hole versus the stifling nurturer. I feel sucked between them, pulled taut and unable to move. I kneel, still, barely listening to them. I begin to count all the knives in the house. Most prominent, the machete that I gave him when we first became lovers. The swiss army knife he gave me for my birthday. His swiss army knife. His leatherman multitool. A cook’s knife, fruit knife, blunt butterknives, plastic picnic cutlery. The sharpening block I taught him to use reminds me how sharp these knives are, because I made them sharp.

What landed us here was that she didn’t approve of my knives, of my cutting flesh into stripes, the gills that suddenly sprung up on my forearm. She’s here to tell him that. He’s here to tell her he doesn’t care. I’m here to kneel between them, wondering which one will win me in the end. Which one will I declare the victor? Which one will deliver me more of the intensity and damage I am in love with.

I count the knives. He gets angrier. She gets angrier. Will either of them break into a run to the kitchenette? Will I?

From the corner of my eye, I watch the long machete, and I become scared because my body is the battleground. I become excited because my body is the battleground. Annihilation is nigh.

But no. Neither of them could do it. Neither of them would do it. They had to have me wholly and separately. Neither would think to carve me up and scrap and cawl over the carcass. Neither of them would make love with the other over my bloody body. Winning, to them, meant taking all of the spoils rather than fighting well, hard and without quarter. The knives stayed undisturbed. The threat remained unspoken. The arguments remained ideological. I remained kneeling, frozen between them, unable to declare a victor.

I can’t trust someone who says he would never hurt me. I trust someone who could hurt me if he wanted to, who could hurt me if he needed to, if I asked him to. I can’t love someone who asks not to be hurt. I can only choose to act, and intentions mean nothing in relation to the consequences.

I won’t promise you a thing, but I hope you trust me. You haven’t promised me anything and I’ve no reason to be disappointed.