That Moment

The lights dim. The music starts, some sort of song specifically engineered to release Oxytocin into your bloodstream. The camera pans up and down the actor’s bodies as they hold their noses close enough to brush and yet, never kiss, as if that single touching of the lips would suspend all the suspense that the filmmakers dedicated hours to making. Hollywood has boiled romance down to a scientific art. They make a grand declaration or sacrifice—run across an airport, blare a radio beneath their window, apologize for every thing they’ve ever done wrong—and then softly they whisper, “I love you.” And just like that the adrenaline races further than it did before. It’s the moment of perfect intimacy that some directing genius dedicated their life to manufacturing, in a single film shot of a camera lens. It’s at this moment that they look in love, the most vulnerable, and so they do what everyone wants. They explore and taste and roam with their eyes sealed shut and their breath heavy. They learn each other in the most physical of ways, and the audience is meant to swoon at their filmed consummation.

No one has ever told me they loved me. No one has offered me any heartfelt speeches, but I’m no stranger to physical vulnerability. That’s all they ever want, to touch, to taste, to try, to roam. The bed sheets crease and the room grows hotter. Two bodies entwined and yet, every time I fear that if I touch too soft, or look too high that they’ll pull away from me. I know that’s never what they want, for me to promise that I love them, to tell them that I care. We’re just bodies, and this is just life, and we’re just having fun, so who fucking cares.

 I’ve never seen my parents kiss, but I’ve seen my father hold my mother. The way their bodies molded together, two individuals not yet defeated, holding each other together. He held her hand and brushed her hair from tear born eyes. He softly kissed her forehead, soft and sweet and nothing more. I want someone to want to hold me, to touch my hair because it’s soft, to kiss my cheek or nose with no intent of wanting more. I want them to hold my soul within their hand and to feel as calm as she did when he held her. It’s the kind of moment that would never make it to the Hollywood screen. It’s boring and tame, perfectly mundane. No one writes that they want to be held. Everyone just wants to be loved, but for me, I think to be held, just once, would be enough.