Simon Bowker – Love and Lust

“He settled in my chair, ever so carelessly. He looked like he belonged in my room more than me and I felt that I needed to get away from his persistent gaze.

Long ago, it was exactly what I wanted. To be with him in one room, under a spell of lust. But long ago I wanted much different things than I do today. At twenty two, perhaps, I would pull the chair with him in it closer to me. I would play a game that i knew I would eventually lose. I would succumb to hid words and his touch.

And today… Today, things fall into their places in an effortless, mechanical way. I go about my day with careful determination and I no longer fall for the drunk words of silly boys. I rationalize and digest my momentary obsessions with calculating precision until they are no longer obsessions, rather unwanted disturbances, in my mind.

Long ago, I aspired to become the person I am today. I worked hard and tirelessly to stop falling. And then, finally, came that fateful day, when his words fell flat before ever reaching the edges of my heart, when I liberated myself from lust and I could look at him, straight into his eyes, and tell him to leave me without ever feeling even a hint of regret for letting him go.

And now that I’m everything I have wanted to become, all I want to do is go back and regain the feeling once so undesirable and now unwillingly forgotten. In all my efforts to never become a victim of lust (or was it love?) ever again, I seem to have forgotten how to feel.

I should have been more careful in what I wished for…”