The Pull
* Inspiration comes from Instructions for Living by Erika L. Sanchez as published in The New Yorker
“The past is the past is the past,” yet
“when you touched me, I named the future.”
Memories of the past,
and your hands,
mouth,
and body on me,
interrupt the present—
yesterday’s future.
Memories of you touching me
haunt me,
inspire me,
startle me.
Memories of you touching me
make me feel:
alive;
beautiful;
sexy;
desired;
sought after…
guilty.
Feelings that,
in my present married-life,
I tamp down;
push under the surface;
neglect.
“I named the future:” Impossible
because I made you into a memory
instead of my reality.
We did that collectively.
You are an unknown.
Sweet in your unattainability.
The truth is never as sweet though.
Is it?
You really did happen,
but not really.
Not fully.
You are like a clause—a
sentence that
never fully formed.
A scene I keep returning to,
replaying in my head.
You are worth remembering,
and I remember you often.
I can conjure up
your image at any time,
and I do, before pressing it away.
You are:
forbidden;
dangerous;
mysterious;
and ultimately,
unknowable.
Still, all-consuming,
you consume my thoughts
as you once consumed me.
Devoured me, like dessert.
We as an entity
will have to live on
in our respective memories—
impeccable memories
that can still recall
the smallest sensory details.
The figure eights you drew with your tongue;
The hand you cupped my head with,
then placed on my wanting breast;
The hairs you gently brushed off my face;
The forbidden words you whispered in my ear.
The very ears you tickled and teased;
Your thumbs against my messy brows;
Your eyes locked on mine
when you looked deep into me,
as you moved deeper into me.
You loved me without saying as much.
You told me with your body.
And all of these visceral memories,
our memories,
draw us back.
Back…
into the distance;
into the beyond;
and into each other.
Back…
to a time that still feels fresh and new—
when “you touched me, and I
named the future:” Impossible.
I suspect you feel the same pull.
Prints
He found your vagina exquisite,
with its creases and folds
and intricate design
like a fingerprint.
Like the very one you left
on his car window,
in the shape of a heart
that first night you met.
When he already held
a piece of your own.
Biography
Melody Greenfield has an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She has been published—both under her real and pen name—in Brevity; Lunch Ticket; Annotation Nation; The Los Angeles Review; the Los Angeles Review of Books; Meow Meow Pow Pow, where her flash piece was nominated for a best small fiction award; the Pup Pup Blog; The Manifest-Station; Poke; Neuro Logical; and forthcoming in Sledgehammer Lit and Pink Plastic House. She lives in LA with her Canadian husband and, when she’s not reading or writing, teaches and practices Pilates.