We Tangoed with Oblivion in The Dark
I know of dark things not easily spoken. Those shameful prison cells concealing things we dare not tell for the fear of stones and broken bones…
For a season, she was very real to me and mesmerized my juvenile soul with a seductive sensual ‘come hither’ stare from across my mother’s bedroom. I could taste the musk and salty tang of her presence in the back of my mouth when she came calling. ‘Oh, Oblivion.’ I was intoxicated by this mysterious siren and her deep hollow promise of sacrilegious painless nothingness. I’d timidly lick my virgin lips and slowly go to her, touch her and press that golden kissed ivory body against mine.
At fourteen, I was much too young to have solemnly traced the silhouette curves of her voluptuous gloom but (more and more) I fixated on her goose bumped bosom of sensual despair that secretly teased and haunted me through sheer melancholy imaginary laced lingerie which pleased the shady places of my young soul and I quivered at her sight. ‘Oh, Oblivion.’
She came from no where — out of my dismal fused unmet dreams and yearned, no, burned…to dance with the likes of me. But cowards lose their nerve and forget their steps and do so, without understanding. Even as I felt her weighty hot breath against my ear whispering ‘dance with me.’ I knew not from where she came yet every inch of me tingled, and I could no longer breathe. ‘Come, dance with me.’ She nibbled playfully licking sweetly in my ear and the hair rose up on the back of my neck as unwanted tears lazily fell from my unknowing eyes. I was powerless in her loving arms as she offered a permanent solution to what I couldn’t know were temporary problems.
How else could I describe it? That’s how it felt, going into that bedroom and opening the deep third draw of my mother’s dresser. It was covered up by her over-sized clothes but situated neatly, next to a pile of Penthouse Forum magazines and various shaped adult toys. Next to all that seediness was a curious 7-inch by 7-inch box made of soft red suede. Perfectly placed inside of it was a gold and ivory-handled hand gun. On the nights when no one else was home I’d feel the overwhelming powerfully inquisitive seductive pull of that gun and I would stand at my mother’s bedroom door, ominously conflicted, looking at that deep third drawer with luminous tunnel vision. Guns don’t mix with teenage gloom and admittedly, there were times where a profound egregious fog of depression washed over me during that year of middle school and the temptress would bewitchingly whisper. ‘Come dance with me.’
The walls would sometimes close-in at Apartment 15–5 and I’d find my mother’s bedroom dark and silent. It was quite normal to not just be alone but to also be consumed with a childlike loneliness. That’s when the walls somehow came alive and knew exactly what to say. Right or wrong, painful questions and statements oozed from those shrinking walls; “Why’d he abandon you? Fathers just don’t leave. Why does she drink so much and throw stale wine in your face every time another man walks out on her? You should leave her too. Permanently! Remember that grown-ass man who taught you how to kiss when you were only nine? Why do you live in this shit hole? Why are you always thinking dirty thoughts? We know what you do in the dark.”
And then those questions were painfully answered; “Because, I’m fucking gross. That’s why! I’m a loser.” And when those answers broke the deafening silence, an orchestra of swelling sadness and anger would build into a crescendo of emotional tears and I would indignantly and rebelliously wipe those unwanted bastards away because I’m not a goddamn cry-baby! I’m not! And then I would sob until I was emotionally numb. ‘Come dance with me.’
Sometimes, in my solitude, when those thoughts came I would, mindlessly, open that red suede box, sit on the floor Indian style, and blankly stare at its contents. My eyes…no, more like…my mind, would divinely caress the curves and the shape and beauty of its frame, its concise action and the smooth barrel. I admired its power and what it could do. Then that musky foul salty tang taste would find its way back into my mouth which I found impossible to swallow. “I can take it all away…, come dance with me.”
The night I finally mustered the courage to dance with her, she was waiting for me like a sultry mistress with aching illuminated pleasure-filled eyes. I took the gun out carefully, held it timidly at first and felt the coolness of its weight in my hand and then pressed it softly against the right side of my chubby brown cheek. I pointed it at the “Keep On Truckin” poster on my mother’s wall and then gazed deeply into the eye of its barrel. I traced the side of its frame against my ear and I heard Oblivion’s alluring whisper ‘Dance with me.’ And the walls began to chatter once more “You’re a joke. No one cares about you anyway. Just do it. You let that strange man kiss you? End it, right here, right now. No more drinks in your face. Maybe, your dad will finally give a shit — finally want to see you. Maybe, he’ll want you but it’s too fucking late.”
I sat on the edge of my mother’s bed, barrel by my ear, as an orchestra of destructive thoughts played on. I yearned to dance…but cowards lose their nerve and forget their steps and do so, without understanding. Yet, Oblivion’s hot seductive breath warmed me from the outside in. My sullied finger fell on the trigger. I closed my eyes and we swayed awkwardly in the dark — drunk on juvenile inadequacies and youthful hopelessness. I squinted with gutless anticipation but then something, something else reached me…something transmitted from some far off place. Beyond Oblivion, beyond indescribable quantum depths of an unexplored, unexplained inner space of consciousness, beyond shadows of doubt, fear and absolute nothingness…an inner voice called out and simply said these words.
“Not today, Beloved.”
And just like that I inquisitively yet numbly laid the gun down beside me and in doing so seemingly pulled my lips away from Oblivion’s sticky fount of darkness. I swallowed that musky salty tang of self-loathing pain and with it, she faded into an ominous fog but not before winking. With no emotion I quietly placed my dance partner back into its red suede box and set it back in the corner of the drawer, next to the sex toys and Penthouse magazines. I covered them carefully with my mother’s clothes and closed that deep third dresser drawer.
Eerily stupefied, I walked into my bedroom, oddly at peace, and locked the door behind me. Amid emanations of soiled clothes and teenage redolence, I plopped myself on my unmade bed and stared at Farrah Fawcett. My eyes caressed the poster and the curves of her body as she sat, playfully, in a red one-piece swimsuit. I locked in on her sultry enthusiastic ‘come hither’ eyes, perfect smile, frosted locks of feathered hair, her goose bumped bosom and golden sun-kissed ivory skin which pleased the shady places of my young soul. I licked my virgin lips ‘Dance with me’ and I quivered at her sight as every inch of me tingled and I could no longer breathe. Through silent gasps and squinted eyes — I spilled my gloom amid pallid stains of shame covered sheets and faded off to painless sleep just as the walls fell silent.
I know of dark things not easily spoken. Those shameful prison cells concealing things we dare not tell for the fear of stones and broken bones. I know of scarlet letters and the cold confines of guilty silence. I’d rather be free. Are you like me? We can’t undo what we’ve done. We can’t unsee what we’ve seen but we can be a light that can comfort and help another through a painful dark place. No one should have to dance alone.
“Come dance with me…”
© 2017 Jason N. Versey
