Fishing

I still have lots of freewrites from the book, but this is one that just came out tonight.

I don’t like the way you look at me. Out of the corner of your eye, as you walk through the door, rush through the door, through the room. I don’t like the way I want to stop you, to hold you still, to keep you still, until I get my bearings, until we can move in concert, until we can perform the choreography so seamlessly, the audience isn’t sure if we are actually two separate people. I don’t like the way you walk ahead of me, just two steps, and glance back from time to time with an upturned lip and a grunt, as if I were the thing that kept you from going to where you wanted to go, or at least kept you from getting there as fast as you wanted. I don’t like how you try to hold your breath so you don’t make any noise when we are in the dark together, or how, when you can’t hold it any more, you open your mouth as wide as you can and breath as slowly and carefully as you can so that it makes almost no sound. I don’t like how your turn on me when I finally make you too slow, when the hooks I have sent flying toward you finally catch in your skin and dig deep enough that you can’t go forward without ripping your flesh open. You snarl and show your teeth, your eyes wide with rage. You crouch down, threatening to pounce on me, and I have nothing to defend myself except this expensive light weight fishing rod that your dad bought me (which I still don’t know how to use properly). I promise you that I am only a sport fisherman, catch and toss back, just for a moment, just to hold you in my hand and enjoy the catch before I throw you back and cast my line again, hoping you will take my withered and saturated bait, hoping that you will grab hold of my line, hoping that you will come to me when I real it in, struggling just enough to make it fun, to make it seem like a sport, flapping just a little when I hold you in my hand and when I gently remove the hook, maybe even rub salve on the wound so it will heal. I only want to hold you for a little while, before you frantically swim away from me again.