Relapse? Justification? Or Fact of Life?

I quit sex the same way I quit everything. I recognized my distaste for it, left unsatisfied after the act (an act I used to take a great, selfish, unapologetic pleasure in) was over (regardless of who it was with); I found myself disgruntled instead of alleviated when it was said (screamed?), done, and wiped away. I made the decision to quit when the discomfort finally trumped the joy, and then I failed to uphold that stance many times over. Each time I fell off the horse, I got back on again -- What made me think this time would be different? -- plagued with regrets and consequences and scowling at myself.

Then one day, I woke up and the urge was gone.

I stopped liking cigarettes a good 3, 4 months before I finally stopped wanting to smoke. I'd feel uncomfortable before the ember made it to the filter. My throat would feel thick and unhappy. My chest would feel heavy. I realized it's been almost a decade since I started, and I said out loud, "I think I'm going to quit smoking before I turn 25." Nobody believed me, but they humored me anyway.

I made attempts, but they were half-hearted at best. I readily lit up when the urge came, shrugging, still taking mild pleasure in the first few pulls where my chest opened up and stirred. Then one morning, I stared at my pack and grimaced. I started clipping each cigarette, saving them for later. There they'd stay for days, abandoned and stale, dissipating its tobacco guts into the corners of my bag.

I no longer consider myself a smoker, though I do still smoke. When there is alcohol in my system, I tend to start asking strangers for their generosity: "Excuse me sir--" (blink, smile, shrug--) "Would you be able to spare a cigarette?"

But that happens few and far between. It's not cold turkey, but for me, it's completely different. I'm not a smoker not smoking, struggling, monkeybarring between falters and withdrawal symptoms. I'm a non-smoker that still dabbles when the time, the wine, and the light is just right. It doesn't matter what it looks like, it's all in how I feel. Every time I succumb to a cigarette, regret is thick in my lungs. But it still happens.

Shortly after I quit smoking, I stopped being so gluttonous with sex. Or rather, I fell into something I feel comfortable calling "love," because it was the wild, cliched, panicky kind of emotion everybody talks about but nobody understands. It was very new and very unbecoming; perhaps when I get older and feel something stronger, I will be able to rearrange my definitions. For now, it seems to fit.

As it turns out, this new feeling rearranged ME. I forgot all my rules, I forgot that all-important "training" necessary in the early stages of a relationship (you all know what I'm talking about). I was in such wonderment of this completely unfamiliar emotion that I -- as I do with everything new and pleasing -- flung myself into it with unrestrained zeal and wide open eyes. It's hard to observe yourself in a situation where your judgement and vision is completely clouded though, isn't it. I learned my lesson, and I accepted the heartbreak. I closed the chapter with new sight.

Fast forward to now, and I can't even recognize myself.

Textibitionist -- the wanton vixen that her entire life strut across your vision with a sneer, a cigarette, and an attitude -- was suddenly passive, quiet, and considerate. She no longer smokes. Her sexuality is still there, simmering (something that engrained cannot simply disappear) beneath the surface. She comes out rarely, stretching luxuriously from her nap in the thick gold of the afternoon sun or the high-heeled breeze of a social night. But when she's sleeping, this.. calmer version takes her place. And I don't know how to feel about her.

You see... I've stopped writing. I've stopped thinking in prose. My mind no longer stands back from itself to record scents, textures, sounds and curve. I've stopped drawing. I can't even tell a strong joke anymore. My creativity is dried up, and I have good reason to think that the part of my brain in charge of dreaming and writing poetry is somehow connected directly to my vagina.

Stop laughing. It's been a few months since it's last been pillaged. That was an active decision on my part; the moment I walked away from the person I wanted inside me most, it's been easy to turn down the rest. I recognized its worth, its value, its standards.

Well. Most times its been easy. A handful of times it's been very, VERY hard. The last time it happened I was reclined in my old boy's passenger side, gripping onto the seat belt with my nails digging into the suede. I was squirming, biting my lip and cursing as he heat my ear with his incredible, indescribable voice. He talks the way your lover does when drugged by the ecstacy of your mouth on his jones. The low pitch, the gravelly smooth simultaneously flowing and tearing from the back of his throat. The sound that comes out after a long caught breath or a sharp hissing intake, that growl in the curse that lets you know he's losing control. It's the breathiness in the declaration of how he's gonna fuck you up, just watch, oh shit, girl you do that one more time and he's gonna fuck the shit out of you, oh shit that's that, right there, right there, right there before a tortured moan and a tension of the thighs. It's the lazy, spent and stunned commentary while he lays breathless, your pattern all over his belly and his lips.

Yes. That's exactly what his voice sounds like. That.

He kept his hands to himself, but he watched me with his eyes. Four years ago, I would have met his gaze, unbuckled slowly, and slid my body to his. I would have snaked my breasts over the strain in his denim, pressing my movements flat against his stomach as I poured myself into his seat. I would have gazed down at his breathing, watching it deepen as I straddled him close. Smirking. Lips caught in a sly smile. I would have teased him with the lightest of strokes, just barely grazing my wet -- and he would know it was wet, no matter what I was wearing -- down the length of his need, squeezing my thighs around its girth.

*Exhales*

Shit. You have no idea. This man has an incredible power with his voice, and it comes over his words. Over me. (This, by the way, is not the aforementioned kryptonite. He is not destructive to any part of my being; on the contrary, he's been the catalyst to great occurances in my history.) Four years ago, I would have fucked him. Whatever struggle I put up was simply to mount the tension. I would have thrown my hair, shoulders against the steering wheel, back arched to avoid the horn -- and it would have been amazing. Man, I looked at him, right into his eyes, and I knew it would be better than ever if we did it today. Especially after all this time, the things we've learned, the skills we've acquired since we last trysted. And I had to fight it with everything I had.

Well, I did. He regarded me from his seat, and chuckled low. I was flushed, my hair was messed up, my shoulders were tensed to my chin. I stared at him, panting, like we had just finished rumbling. There was fury in my eyes. My center was throbbing. "You are a hypnotist," I accused. He laughed.

After he drove me home (took his sweet time pulling out of the parking space, too... he was waiting for me to change my mind), I dashed up the stairs and fell onto the floor of my bedroom. I fought off my jeans. I curled into a ball, pulsing with frustration, and threw a fist into my hair. This is when I found out that I was already dripping; there were tracks down my thighs, my panties were soaked through. My lips were hot, swollen, slick around my fingers. I barely had to do anything. I damn near blacked out.

I know that if I had grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him into the back seat after me, I would have had every orgasm I didn't have since I was 14. There would have been double rounds, do-overs, power struggles, loud head, drawn out teases and hard, punctual thrusts. The air would have been heavy with delicious sounds of thick slurping and skin slapping and bones thudding and musk; pink tongue against pink rock and shaking, fighting, cursing, surrender. I said no, because I knew once I had it, I would immediately go back to it, resume being controlled by it, and I've been doing so good. I said no, for the sake of my sanity. And as cheesy as this may sound, I said no, for the sake of my freedom.

I shook, I grit my teeth, I writhed, I curled. My breath stopped, my mouth hung open, and I let out one -- just one -- small sound as I hit my first peak in months. I rode it out, grinding against my fingers, breath unsteady, my hair still wrapped around the other wrist.

After some time I stood from the floor, my back speckled with indents from the carpet. I looked around me, dazed. I showered drowsily, letting the water run hot over my scalp. I stayed there until the slick remains of my release disappeared, and then I sat at my computer, swaddled in towels. I leaned back, squinting my eyes. I sparked up some green.

Shit. Do you know what happened then?

I wrote a poem.

I wrote a poem about Poetry, and I spoke of her as if she was my lover. I left it unfinished when the weed hit potent, and I nodded off to sleep listening to Bach or Sean Lennon, I'm not sure which.

It still blinks at me, open ended. I have not been able to complete that poem since.

So now I wonder.

When was the last time you saw me write like this?

When was the last time my words made such a powerful impact, painted pictures for you, pretty much streamed a live video of my fantasies straight into your bloodstream?

I think I lost the ability to write like that when I stopped having sex. Even now, that imagery did not start flowing until my memory made its way past my thighs. When I had to press them together, because I am not home right now. When I started thinking about that voice, that tongue, pressed against my clit in earnest. It wasn't until I got wet that I started leaking prose.

I know a few good dudes that would bring it right back. But I'm scared. My will power is unaccustomed to holding on for so long; this is the strongest it's ever been. Should I let go, backpedal in my growth, and give in? All for the sake of writing?

You tell me.

Sigh, I miss my muse.

Can I be that girl? The non-smoker smoking? Or would it be more like the rehabbed, indulging? I've been fucking as long as I've been inhaling. I have an addictive personality, and I'm afraid that if I jump (not fall) off the horse, I will not have the ability or will to climb back on.

Ponder.

Another lost case

We're on the fire escape, dressed in our semi-casual Friday bests. In my second-favorite spring dress and absolute favorite pair of heels, I smoke my first joint of the weekend. I haven't slept since Wednesday, but I'm feeling good. I look good. I had bartended (mildly) after I got off of work and met up with some people for dinner in the city; I left them when they got too drunk. I wasn't in the mood for alcohol, so I needed a change of scene.

I'd wandered to a bar closeby and joined the bouncers outside, inquiring about their kids, their lady friends, their weeks. They all looked exhausted, but they were still happy it was Friday. An hour later, I'm catching up with a friend of mine on a shady fire escape. It's been a while since I'd seen him last, and he looks like shit. He is dressed in a leather jacket, beat up converses, a fashionable cap, and a fitted shirt. He teaches ESL to students at a nearby college. He is normally smiling, or indifferent. Today he has bags under his eyes.

"How have you been?" I ask, searching his face. His smile is weary, but he never tells me when he is stressed. I haven't known him long enough to be able to pry correctly.

"Good," he says. "Same old." I nod, we smoke in a heavier silence. "I got arrested on Monday," he laughs.

My brow lifts. "Wow. What? You?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

He sighs. "I was playing handball at the park. They planted a bag of weed on me."

"What?" Eventually more information is thrown in, and I can piece the full story together. The cop kept pushing his face into the wall as my friend, baffled, continued to ask what he did. His anger peaked once he realized what was going on and his mouth just let go some venomous shit, causing the man to handle him rougher. In the van, the cop turns around and leers at him. "I hate niggers," he says. "So fucking much."

Handcuffed, my boy spits back, "Ohh, so that's it. A nigger fucked your mom." The cop proceeds to "flip the fuck out."

"I never carry weed with me," he says gently, passing the joint back to me. "I never carry it outside with me. I can always get it when I need it. It's such bullshit."

I ask him a few questions, watching as he stumbles through his answers. Then I shrug, grimace. "You don't have a case, babe. It's your word against his."

"I know," he sighs. "But I have the lawyers working on it."

While publicizing this would add fire to the Bell flame, I knew it was a bad idea. The trial is this summer. They could do a hair test and confirm that he does indeed smoke weed. How could he prove that the bag was planted? How could he prove that the cop said "nigger"? How could he prove that this wasn't just another black boy trying to pull the race card? What proof could he possibly show? He would lose the case, and quite possibly his job.

I put my hand on his shoulder on the way out. "Good luck," I say.

He sighs again.

Acquitted

I will just say that I am not baffled. I am not surprised. I am heartbroken, but I've been feeling that a lot lately. I just want to take this outside of the context of race for a minute and remind the judge, the detectives -- and yes, even the enraged -- that a crime is a crime, regardless of the color of the victim.

Man, my heart is breaking because of his children, his mother, his fiance. There will be no holiday, no birthday, no graduation passed without thought or tears running over the empty chair. There will be parents who poured their double shifts, their pleading arguments, their love, their life, and their exhaustion into making sure that their babies will walk the right path, knowing that at any moment, that path could be blocked by a trigger happy douchebag. My heartbreak does not stem from the fact that he was black. My anger, yes, but not the sadness that pepto-bismoled my chest as soon as I received the text this morning. I responded with a sigh. This is reality, folks.

I am so sorry that this happened to you. Money can not possibly make up for it. I will pray for all the Bells and Bells to be's.

I haven't been writing; I don't have a reason to offer you. I haven't been talking much, either. I'll come back when I have something to say worth sharing. All the epiphanies and profound tidbits I've had are being deposited into (still, a very small number of) comments sections and forums boards, or being formed on-the-spot and thrown up into real life conversations had around coffee, sunlight, blunts.

I've been craving good conversations, face to face. You down?

I Love

Kitchen Table Conversations, sans food
Wine and skinny cigarettes... together
scarves
scarves
bright colored
paisley patterned
gradient shaded
drapey or heavy
any kind of
scarves
a fitted hoodie on a man
under a casual blazer, even better
pinstripes <3

I Still Love

Peeling the labels off of bottled drinks
Diners in the early mornings
Diners really late at night
Dark red tablecloths
Branch silhouettes along the highway
Purple skies
Red suns
Muted skylines
Gold windows
Highlighters
Canvas shopping bags

I Now Love
Unique floral arrangements
White coffee cup/plate combinations
Glass pitchers

I Am Developing An Affinity For
African Red Bush Tea at Starbucks :X

I Still Hate Do Not Like
Most roses
Most tiger lilies
Most carnations
Pointy flats
Square toes