Paiku ( Part 2)

I didn’t know whether to hold your hand or stroke it gently with the tips of my fingers. I didn’t know what meant better. Do I never want to stop feeling you or would I rather let you feel the rhythm of my feelings for you? Confused, I held your hand with four fingers and stroked your skin with my thumb. The warmth of your skin leaked out from the spaces between my fingers so I held your hand close to my chest and cuddled it with my whole heart. In my head, my voice repeated every move I made like a story.

I wanted myself to be as quite as possible because I didn’t want to quicken my heart rate. If you felt its thump, I was scared you will think it’s too loud. I moved your hand gently from my heart to the other side but leaned on your shoulder. Your shirt smelled like a forest. All I needed was to dip my face in it and take a deep breath but I didn’t know how to explain it if I were to do that. Would you laugh if I said you smelled like forest? Or would you think I’m a weirdo? I tend to judge people by how they smelled. I try not to but my nose is in constant search for scents like rainy Sundays, summer, forests, beach, coffee and temples. I tilted my head a little and brushed my nose on the edge of your shoulder. As I closed my eyes I imagined myself in a forest while it’s raining and I didn’t had an umbrella. I wished I had an umbrella but not knowing when this rain might stop, I just wanted to savor every second of it.

I got closer to your heart and threw my arms around your neck. Have you touched the dampened skin of an old tree in a rain forest? The velvet moss growing on it comfortably and rain dews resting on the tiny edges of moss impatiently? Your skin felt as if I brushed my palm on a tree as such. I felt all the years it took to be what it is today. The curves and the edges. The dryness and the wetness. The coldness and warmth. My heart was about to explode with my heart on your hand and my hand on your skin. From that moment, no moment felt real.

I didn’t know whether you were real or I’m so desperate that I made up this person in my head. Either way I couldn’t let go of a forest. I slowly took my hand and kept it on your chest in search of a door. Like Alice in Wonderland, I wanted to softly take a bite out of hand, make myself smaller, open the door on your heart, crawl inside and sleep listening to the rain. As my voice repeated these very words with every touch, I finally understood why Shakespeare’s sonnets for his muse were unbearably, earthly yet heavenly passionate.

Should I stop writing about you though? I really should, before I start to sound so ridiculous. But I want to write about you on trees, rocks, stars and the moon. I want to write until my wrist gives up. But the words to describe you come as hard as an amateur trying rock climbing. The words slip a lot and every slip feels like death; in failing and falling to describe you. My mind hasn’t known what it was like to complete withdraw me from myself until I kissed your lips. As the fairy tale goes, A princess was woken up with a kiss from true love and who are you and me to tell that Christ wasn’t kissed to get resurrected? I’m not the one to stick around a person, the life expectancy of a connection I start often dies too soon. But I felt like I tasted something so holy, it keeps me waiting for more and more. With a time bomb on my palm, I kept kissing you. My only free hand formed your neck like I’m an expert at pottery and I keep ignoring the ticking sound. By then I have already decided to drown myself in you hoping this lasts just enough.

( Photo: Knuckles Mountain Range)