Losing Desire

An excerpt from JOURNAL TEN: "Thunder Road, Part Two (Thriller)"

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Last night was a tragedy, each minute grinding away, a search for love to come but ending in a realization. Patty felt pushed and forced. I feel like David in Endless Love. Our love feels as if it has lost something, and I really hope she doesn't show up for lunch, like I have a feeling she might. Because I don't want to see her...this rejection hurts more than getting the manuscript back in the mail. I look at her eyes, and I see her rejecting me over and over again, finally our lives becoming a frustrated, and soon to run out of string, yo-yo. Everything else is less important in my mind. I just want to make love to her, that's all. And she feels forced. It's not worth the risk. Is it that important if we don't make love? Are you any less in love with me?

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All of those questions, or statements, circulated throughout my mind and dreams last night. Patty has off from work today, and I contemplated taking the day off, but why? So we can argue? Spontaneous lovemaking, even in the basement of my parents' house, used to be delicious, totally satisfying for the short amount of time we had. I love to satisfy her, then myself, but now that risk is too great. And yet I ask what risk can't be great enough to sacrifice being together, body to body? This whole day sucks, from the moment I went to bed last night. She thinks I'm forcing her passion - well, that's too bad for me, isn't it?

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I really want to start saving for an apartment but my heart towards her feels lighter, not so much broken but bruised. All day, all I do is think about her, fantasize about making love to her. And she says the same, supposedly. Yet she's off today, horseback riding in Iroquois Park with her brother while he's visiting from Long Island, probably thinking about how I rescued her from North Babylon and all of the times she spent there without me. For each day that goes by, no, each hour, I long to make love to her, I would die for it. I truly feel apart from her, my need for acceptance great at this time. Love pours from inside of me, oozing out with no purpose...and it is raining in my soul. My thoughts race to her, trying to perceive what she's thinking, blocked by this sign...

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"NO!"

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I cannot help but think back to the beginning months of our relationship, since we still refer to it in months. 22 months on Monday. 2 years in October. I want everything to be changed by then, but how do I live a life of day-to-day passion when none of it is returned to me? I love Patty, and I know with every sense of me that her feelings are the same. Sexuality is the concern here, and 20 months ago we couldn't fuck each other enough. Now the situation is different, granted, but has this change put out a part of the flame which I incessantly thrive over? Is this the same girl who slept with me - secretly made love to me - in a room full of people, up close, under foot, risking it ALL for it ALL?

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That's my trouble in understanding: why won't she risk it? I shouldn't call her "a girl," for being a young woman, I find her both mature and adolescent. Maybe it's the young girl in her that keeps me so hard, but a woman would realize that the satisfaction of her man is tantamount and reciprocated to her. You get just as good as you give.

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So, save for an apartment, hope she realizes the pressures - but when I was looking at her last night I found my eyes seeing her hurt me, never intentionally. I wanted her so badly, so strongly, and I thought she would see that, sense it, act accordingly upon and not away from it. I was stunned, but how can I run from feelings that constantly chase me? Last night I asked Patty what we would do if only one of us (namely me) had to risk it all in the future and where it would leave the other one. Silence...

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Losing desire feels so entwined with my the outcome of my destiny, which I once considered sure, my life planted in a style so determined that it wouldn't matter what came along. Nothing could sway it. But that long time ago is gone, security the only thing I believed in also having departed. Wondering which avenue love has strayed to is a full-time job, and heartache to boot. I am distracted by so many things, so many memories highlighted by the thought of her. I am unable to sleep well enough, though I am not tired. Listless is the word. I don't even care that my pot runs out tonight. If someone offered me 10 ounces of Tai weed as opposed to the chance of Patty making love with me, I'd take the risk.

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My hand is a pen for my heart, and I tried to explain it yesterday but I fear going home, seeing her there and feeling uncomfortable. Afraid to be rejected in lesser areas. How do I climb the mountain again after falling? I wish she would desire to make love, not want to hold or kiss. I want it all, selfish as I am. Yet I do not see her desire.

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So here I am, filling up the last pages of "Thriller" with disappointment. This last time, I sincerely would like to try something different, some way out. But I love her, and this last hour of waiting to see her, waiting to see if she'll react in any way, shape or form is brutal. I still want to make love to her after being rejected, not relenting as we stalk each other, but I am the only one advancing. My dreams are alone, without her, because she is not there, not wanting me...all of me.

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Romeo was a limp-wristed motherfucker in love with Juliet compared to the feelings I have for Patty. But I am scared to open myself up again, to hear "No" or "You're pushing me." I thought that making love, no matter the place or the time, the circumstances, pressures or risks was a place we would always go together.

 

But so much is ahead...I feel it, and the pressures of what go through my mind create many scenes for me. I see her dancing freely across a field of tall grass, a brilliant moon rising behind her. I see her alone as she looks out upon a river bathed in soft sunlight. And she is alone, without me. This day has been worse than yesterday, and now I must go home to her...after wanting her all day.