The soft corners of portraits

Shibuya Scramble Square

So that’s what it’s supposed to feel like, he said, curiosity unfolding in real time. We withdrew from each other’s faces in a kind of awe. I felt at ease. Of course that’s what it’s supposed to feel like, I thought. Then realized that I had also forgotten the feeling of ease.

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Rooftop

I’m not sure what I wanted. Maybe physical touch is one of the wants I hide from myself sometimes. He put his arm on the back of my chair, resting behind me. Anytime I leaned back, his thumb gently touched my skin. We continued talking as if this play was a secret to us. 

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Bedroom 

We had been kissing for a while when he brought his hand to my cheek. He gently brushed the hair from my eyes, tucking it behind my ear. 

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A club

Sometimes you both agree that it’s going to happen before it does. The waiting beforehand stretches like elastic, or clay. After the kiss, I shouted over the music: I don’t like kissing in public! That was never true for me before, but it feels true sometimes now. 

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The usual place

We met in 2020, but didn’t kiss then. Years later we finally did. At the same bar, in the same spot; she told me things I was thinking, and I forgot the familiarity of the room, what it looked like.

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Room with lemons cut

He didn’t know how to answer, nor that answers would sound the way mine did—opening the way lids do from jars. Something exists before it is known or named, maybe I am always trying to name it. It was foreign for us, finding the empty spaces for language, then finding the words most fitting to place there. Like this? No, like this. Maybe. Then there was the Not Saying; bright but gentle movement, the finding of bright and gentle movement that guided itself; waiting for touch, permissions granted and sure, shape-shifting, and shape-giving.  

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In a crowd

I like kissing women, but I like kissing men more, she said over the sounds. People were loud. Our kiss was like being on a swing, momentum pulling one way then the next. 

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wall moon I
photo overlay 
26 x 34cm

every small part
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postcard / A4 

there & then
pen and marker on postcard