feverpitch

I try to date like a man.

I can do nothing else in my life so manly as dating. Women are vulnerable, you see, needy. You can see right through us. Even the cheaters and the liars. It's in the way our bodies curve in or out. Love is like gravity for a woman, and we make satellites of the most tender parts of us. When in love we orbit, some in more obvious ways than others.

But men maintain a certain stoicism.
They are better liars. There hopes do not find a place within them to settle and magnetize towards their love. Something casual and dangerous lurks in the love of a man. It can pick and choose. There is no irrational chemical burn in their veins, no withstanding martyrdom.

So I try my best to date like a man.

I do not make myself transparent. I ignore phone calls. I hold myself in check. I do not squeal, I do not gush. I am careful. I can flirt and multitask as well as any man. I can go out at night, and know exactly which phone numbers I give out with be ones who might be kind, might be real. But mostly, I know they will text me the next day, with texts about "chillin soon" which will chill me with the surreality of it all. It is not possible that people are not hungry for each other, except in body. I know somehow it's not true.

But I see it. Eyes glazed and so far past pretense as to not even care if I hope. Eyes with intent and the desire to hunt. The ones that will say anything.

So I limit myself. I tell myself I can see right through all of it and suddenly, when I choose wrong, I am as shocked as a child who touched her fingers to the perfect orange flame. But I am a child in so many other ways. Once found, my vulnerability is naive and bottomless. I become a well of forgiveness, and unabashed tears flow freely if violated. Once penetrated, the core of me is sunburned skin, open wounds, and a toddlers trust, all in one easily trespassed package. I am a doll undone, filled with all the world's rot, and sewn shut again, with the loss inside me.

I am a cry at feverpitch, and I am lost. It's strange and rare. My pain is the blackest and most priceless of gems. I cannot keep it safe. And worse still, every day I'm growing new nerves, new loves, new ways to hurt. In each and every moment a millimeter of skin grows succeptible, even with all my trying.

So I try to date like a man. But I am a woman. And I am the soil that will not fallow. I am made a great arch and a great fool by the gravity of my love. And gravity is ever so strong.