Category: Journal

That smell of a man, it is life. There with my chin pressed in to his neck, the scent of his hair filling my nostrils. That musk of a man when he hasn’t washed his hair in days and it is thick with natural oils.

I’ve always loved that natural smell, and there with my arms around him close, our bodies stuck to one another and the little beads of sweat from there under the sheet, that is as it always should be. If only it always could be.

Some times he’d lay asleep on his back. His arm wrapped around me, holding me tight to him. My head snuggled into his side, under his arm pit, inhaling that wonderful scent of man. I would kiss him there gently and he’d murmur and a smile would come to his lips.

As I’d move to study his face he’d mistake my restlessness as my moving to escape. He’d squeeze me into him tight with his arms, and I’d rest back into that perfect place with my arm across his waist. Some times he’d be conscious enough that he’d lean down and kiss my forehead. Always with that happy smile on his lips. Oh those perfect lips.

I could hear his deep breathing of sleep. Feel his chest expand up against my arm. This peaceful sleep. Sleep. Sleep here forever in my arms.

It was pre-dawn. You know that time before the sun creeps over the eastern horizon and the sky is slowly growing lighter and lighter. That moment before the birds sing and the day begins a new. I hope for time to slow, to give me a few more moments of perfection.

I have begun to hate the pale blue in the trees. That moment where I know the sky is failing me. For I know as the day breaks, so does he. The spell not so much broken. No. Not broken. Never broken. I just know the guilt gets into him. I know he’ll awake and go. I won’t want him to go. I’ll offer breakfast. I’ll offer coffee or tea. He’ll dress and decline. I won’t want him to go, but he’ll go. I’ll kiss him goodbye wearing the sheet only, as I walk him to the door. I’ll watch his back go down the stairs. I’ll watch him go, and he’ll go home. Home to her.

I’ll crawl back into bed still wearing nothing but the sheet. I’ll smother my face into the pillow he’s just left behind. His scent still there, a lingering reminder of the man I love. But what is this love?

Written on Friday, May 20th, 1994

You with the sad eyes, I can relate. You with the overbearing father, I can relate. You with the questioning stare, am I really so strange just because I look different. We may be one in the same. You with the laughing face, am I really so amusing or do you think it makes you superior? You with the drunken smile, I’ve been there but I will not honestly venture into that dreaded state ever again. You the one who leers at me as if I were a threat to you, chill out, think peaceful thoughts, I’m not an enemy. I’m not going to invade your domain. You the cheaply dressed young girl, why be so desperate to draw to the wrong kind of attention? Sex is not love and love is not sexual. It’s spiritual. It’s bliss. It can also be addictive, much more so then any drug, any beer. Once you have known true real love you want to know it always. Some times you try so hard to hang on to it love only fights to get away.

You the one who said you loved me then simply took it back, how cruel it was of you, specially because you did it to me. You the Aquarius, so weak, so scared that a Pisces would dare ask you to think understand her Pisces mind. You the one who seems so lonely maybe you really only think that you can’t have it all. Maybe you never gave it a chance at all to grow. You the guy who thinks I’m perfect for him, who really knows what will come of it. If it doesn’t happen you’ll always survive. Me like so many of my generation suffer from bouts of depression. I can recover but like so many others I wonder what there is to look forward to. I’m frightened by the changes that I see in the mirror, out the window and in my friends and specially my family. Time is catching up with us. We can not run.

You with the smile, I’ve seen you sad too. Even in the throws of it all I’ve seen you frown. I’ve never seen you cry but I know you do, it shows. You like me have deep feelings about the world around us. About our true friends. I feel for all of them. My generation is lost, finding too much comfort in sin, whatever that means. Sometimes I feel pain but it’s a good thing. If I didn’t I’d be afraid I wasn’t human anymore. But the suffering of our generation has to end but I haven’t an answer to stop the pain. I suffer too, I fight the same demons. We are all the same inside. We are all the world’s damnedest creation.

You my dearest friend the one who makes me feel alive. The one who sometimes drives me mad. The one who tries too hard to keep me feeling good when all I can do is feel bad. You are truly my friend. My love to you is gold. Worthless to some but priceless to you and I am glad. You make me happy to have a world to live in even as I feel it’s crumbling all around me, even as I write this. I feel something big is going to happen but I don’t know what or exactly when. I hope it all works out all right.

You are me and I am you. We are all one. Entirely, ever present and continually. It will never change. It’s about the only thing that won’t, that and my love. I only hope I don’t hold on so tight I kill the love I have in me for all of you. You never know what you have until it’s too late.

Barbara Doduk