First Meditation

(Imagine yourself a possessor of something beautiful, say, an exquisite glass prism - it captures the sun in it and fascinates and enchants and delights you endlessly with every rotation. This is when you fear the night, and you fear how it might shatter without warning at your slightest negligence.)
This is one of those artists’ things perhaps, like sharp-pencil fetishes and getting spasms of delight at stacks of blank paper – the incessant opportunistic urge to lock beauty in time for ourselves. In close proximity to Matthew I feel I must take up a pencil and sketch that visage. Not daring to ask explicitly, I end up stealing glances at him while he is looking elsewhere and twiddle strokes that outline his profile in the air, secretly behind my back so he cannot see. Profiles like his are infinitely sensuous; I can draw it with increasing fluidity over the preliminary sketchy strokes, memorizing every ridge and crevice of that ultimate single line as if I’m running a finger down his skin for myself. When he is asleep beside me I trace his features slowly with my fingertips, my tongue along his eyebrow, his eyelashes, eyelid, his hairline down his cheekbone, the jaw-line that tapers into a strong chin, his sleeping smile at the corners of his lips, and I imagine it on paper. His countenance is not that of light, delicate watercolours or smoky expressionistic charcoal; he makes me think of mountains and canyons, heavy and rich in atmosphere and color. Even the aural flow of his race reminds me of adventure – “Burmese”, like some big cat (impression accentuated by his sinewy long torso; I will craft him in warm pastels, style: impressionistic. The moonlight filtered through the blinds dramatizes the contours of his face and set them sharply in ethereal blue and black, his deep brow, the firm, manly, perfect Caucasoid features that make me liken him to a Greek god, or Michelangelo’s ignudi, a living piece of Classical art to (be)hold. When this is over I must lean in to inhale his heady scent, imagining it fusing into my lungs and veins, merging with and staying in my lifeblood. I will remember the rhythm of his breath I felt on my cheek too: tempo sixty four, marriage d’amour. When he isn’t around I satiate myself with writing his name, as if that will do, a million and one ways over in graffiti, the way he likes it. I cannot control myself.
Matthew; unparalleled beau(ty).
What do you want, you will ask me someday. I want you to make me your diary; you must write your whole life on me, into me, with your pen, your fingers, your lips; I will keep all your secrets and you shall label me yours. Barcode me, tag me, claim me; I will bear your name if you ask. Smuggle me into paradise.
(a beat.)
but if you’d prefer Lightness…
(a beat.)
I will wait. I won’t ask for talks or movie outings; I shall flirt and let you flirt and wish you would bid us stop; you shall think I remember you only as the generic taste of mouth as you do me. I will be your catatonic love-joy sex toy diver; I will love you in silence.