Running from Rings
The First.
Talking to him brings up such intense emotions that when he’s in my presence I can’t breathe. When he walks in, tall, steady, loving eyes, arms as big as his uncles when we were kids.
We are the Uncles and Aunties now.
We sit back, talk and kick it like no time has passed.
Like,
I’m opening the door of 23 Joyce Kilmer all over again, 12 year old eyes lit up like Christmas lights staring at a purple elephant, a unicorn.
*Two years older but in the same grade
*My complexion or darker
*Intelligent but not a nerd
*Humble, but not a chump
*Makes me laugh
*When we first kiss, I fly
He is the description to the letter of what God’s desires for me are. Still.
This fucking sucks.
21 years later, sitting on a purple couch surrounded by the books I’ve been collecting since we lived together all those years ago, I look at his hands and remember how gentle they were when I finally Gave my virginity away (technicalities aside), somewhere in that house on Seaman. It was the basement, on his bed under the stairs, Grandma and Grandpa in the other room, sleeping. Those hands...they are as naked now as they were when we were kids.
His ring.
I KNOW HE DIDN’T.
Why did he come over here without his ring? I can’t even deal. I don’t understand. Why would he come over here without his ring? Is it out of respect? If so, for who? Does he know? Does he know that I still tingle on my inside parts when I see him, that my heart still thumps when he smiles at me?
fuck. Fuck. FUCK!!
In fact, everytime I see him, he isn’t wearing his ring. What does he want? What are his intentions? Why isn’t he wearing his ring?
A long time ago, like I don’t know, a few months after he got married, three to be more specific, I tried to convince him that we should have a one night stand. Like, a “hoe-cation” for me and him, my bestie and TheNameWeDontMentionCauseItHurtsHeSaidNo. Two rooms, two days, two friends, old dicks, white-boy wasted, and bad decisions. He was super hesitant. I dropped the idea (Song plays in my head: Aaliyah, I Miss You). Now I’m sitting here, looking at his empty ring finger and wondering whether he thinks this is that.
That symbol of a thing.
That the war is over and I lost. But he’s not wearing his ring.
So anyways. Nothing has happened, other than that time a few days ago when I, pressed up against the car he drives his kids to school in, let him lift the drunken me up by my ass, spread my legs around his waist in a romper that was too short to begin with and let him kiss me like he isn’t married to my cousin. Three years younger and twice removed. She’s beautiful. Hazel eyes on Karamel skin, long hair, small waist, thick in every place that I’m not. Their beautiful three year old flashed through my mind that night. In a drunken stupor I’d stumbled out of the car, a wretched bitch for allowing a kiss, saved by the fact that when he took out his dick-I bolted. Instant sober.
But nothing has happened since then. He’s tried me. That’s for damned sure. Walking up on me while reminiscing about our laughs, a hand on my thigh, a whisper on my neck, he’s so, so, strong. We play around and laugh like teenagers even though we’re grown and married with kids. Nothing will happen. I’m too busy trying to obtain what She has elsewhere. Or-I’m too busy being righteous and fearing Karma. A Facebook post by Mookie flashes through my head. “Say NO to Married Men. Save another woman’s marriage, Sis.”
I point at his hand, nudge him closer with my eyes. He leans in, the smell of bubblegum and rasta oils replaced by the scent of hardwork, fatherhood and Gucci’s Guilty. The closer he gets the more I come alive, visions and revisions of the past twenty-nine years playing games with my mind....
“You forgot your jewelry.”
Awkward.
“I left it in the car.”
“You better go get it. We wouldn’t want it lost.”