THOSE WHO SUFFER LOVE
We sit in the lecture theatre and you read over my shoulder when I go to get something from my bag. You've seen your name in something- I offer no explanation.
As I flip through the pages of my book you point to something and say, 'Is this you?' I smile, 'The book of revelations'.
I am made difficult in your company. However I actually am, I look delicate, strange next to you. I talk about animals and about god and you regale me with relentless, demanding logic, stories about sex and about alcohol.
I sit across from you in a bar amongst a group of people. You're being cruel to the others, trying to make me laugh, and I've got my fingers locked over my glass, I don't know if I can keep a straight face.
Whatever the others say, I'm not mysterious to you and to me you are comfortable, easy to read.
Still, I am left unprepared, despairing at my own chastity.