Distance

Arja Salafranca

Sex slows down to an uneasy refusal,
a crawl. The distance is there –
in twitches, of what?
Refusals, wanting to please,
knowing it cannot go on forever.
I succumb to twitching acceptance,
the distance of uncertainty.
I say I’m reclaiming my space,
I don’t say it feels like rape –
you’d think then, that it was all your fault.
Instead I lie there, wanting to give,
receive, body twitching with aftershocks
of something like orgasm and
something like no.
So we lie there in darkness,
saying nothing about the vast distance
caused by a friend’s face
her disapproval etched in the way
she looked at me.
Trying to decide who or what to believe.

Agonisingly, I don’t decide.
I list things.
The distance grows between the friend and I.
There are some things we will not discuss.

I try to laugh it away.

LitNet: 20 December 2005

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