To Know the Things That God Left Behind

I woke up this morning with my arms wrapped around your warm, slight body.

As I opened further into day, memories came back and my body became more wooden beside you. We'd had sex last night; I'd gotten out of my car, eyes still dry and sore from tears shed on the drive back home and gone to your house, into your door and bed. Having sex with you is a form of slow suicide; a deep and scarring violation of my self. I'm on top of you knowing that this is what I am supposed to like, to do, this is the central tenant of what it is to be a girl. I wake up hating myself and say as much, softly, and you don't really mind my saying that. You cuddle with me and I struggle between enjoyment and resistance; to love this sensation or to love myself?

You answered all of my questions honestly last night, even though you must have known you'd lose me by doing so. Yes, you are completely and utterly straight; everything you've ever done with a male person has felt wrong or awkward; if I had the same personality, looks, and so forth, and different genitals, you would unquestionably not be in the same bed with me.

"I need ambiguity; it is the space I use for my imagination, so that I can feel turned on; I use these little things about you to pretend just enough."

"I know, and I know I just took that away from you, and shot myself in the foot by doing so."

"Would you have sex with an angel?"

"It depends upon the angel."

"I want to know if you have just enough ambiguity to be with someone who was not entirely female, who was in some small way not a girl. If I knew that I could be with you entirely; to know that you wanted all of me; both halves, although they are not really separate but are one; I would like to really be here with you, to be whole."

He looks at me quietly and with an essential sadness and a love that has motion. "You're beautiful."