#all the metaphors

It’s a tired old metaphor, the kind that you wheel out when there’s nothing else to grasp, because you know it works, and you know that it’s going to get the point across. It's decrepit, exhausted and frail, but that doesn’t stop it getting thrown into sentences a thousand times a day. It makes you feel a little ashamed, but what the hell.

We’re icebergs; we only show ten percent. 

Fuck, we only show five. Two. One. A decimal. 

It’s because we don’t trust the world, and we’ve got good reason not to. It’s betrayed us before, and it’ll do it again, it’s just that kind of messed up place. And there’s so much of it that you don’t want betrayed, so much that you’ve kept quiet and safe, nurtured into something that you know is beautiful, but to hear it derided and ridiculed would kill the magic that you’ve conjured up. You hide it from the world, when you want to shout about it. You want to be accepted, and through that acceptance, lovedfor it.

It makes conversation into Russian Roulette, pointing a gun at your friends, your loved ones, pulling the trigger on that kind of information and seeing whether it’ll be the bullet that destroys your relationship. Sometimes your lucky. Maybe most of the time. But it only takes one live round to ruin the rest, warn you away from that trigger finger, break it so that you can never use it again. You don’t want to be broken. You don’t want to do the breaking. 

But you’re not an iceberg. You shouldn’t have to be. Be a plane peaking through the clouds. Be a squid owning the depths. Be whatever the fuck you want to be, but don’t be an icebergs. This isn’t a world where icebergs survive very long, not any more. Pull the trigger, and see what good comes of it. If the gun goes off, the gun goes off; it always would and it always will. The rest of the time, you’re golden. 

They were dancing around one another. Months of it, getting closer, then farther, never quite touching, and never quite moving away far enough that they weren't with one another. It was on the cards, written on the wall, but it was a wall on an apartment that they were going to buy together, at some point in the future. They weren’t quite there yet. 

She wondered what it might be like to be with him, hand clasped in hand, one on her hip, one on his ribs. To be lead by him, or maybe do a little leading of her own. He had a bad habit of letting his stubble turn into a light beard, and she wanted to be the attentive one to catch the problem before it began. She wanted to wake up next to him and run her hand over his face and know that yes, today is the day she gets out the razor and makes him clean. 

He wondered what it might be like to have her under his thumb, a waltz, a tango. Alternate steps, rising and swelling to the music, before it diminished into something altogether placid, calm and tranquil once they were both spent against the sheets that clung to them like satisfaction. They’d pant, his a deep, slow movement that made his chest swell. Her’s a little faster, more spontaneous. She was always more spontaneous. It made his surprises all the more surprising. 

She got a little closer. He got a little closer. He thought what it might be like to wrap a hand around her throat. She thought what it might be like to feel him come inside her. A little closer. She wondered what the word ‘Mine’ might sound falling from his lips like an atom bomb. He mused on the mewling she’d make when she was gagged, teased and unable to get away. A little closer. A blindfold. Marker pen scrawling 'Slut’ across her stomach. A little closer. A languid, morning-gravelled voice ordering her on what to wear that day. Her in the kitchen. Him in the kitchen. Cooking together. Watching Tv together. A little closer. 

She stepped on his toes. He didn’t mind. They laughed. A little closer.

Idle fingers found the hem of her skirt, fondling the fine lace of the ruffle with an absent minded curiosity. Her face was a mess of in betweens. Between confused and serene, anxious and calm. Furrowed brows, smiles, half lidded eyelids and attentive eyes. 

Six months ago, this is not a skirt she would be own, let alone wear. Even a few weeks back and the idea would have been met with a mix of assumed humour and mild affront. And yet here she was, wearing it. More than that, she was comfortable wearing it. For the tenth time that hour, she happily cursed him and his charm. His persuasive words and even more persuasive actions. 

At some point, dressing up for him had stopped being dressing up for him. It was now just how she dressed, and there was some small part of her mind that was protesting that, six months ago, she would regard the person who sat here in this ruffled, overly pink skirt with a mixture of contempt and pity. The the she of six months ago would consider the she of now to be quite loopy. 

The irony being the she of six months ago was far from sane. She was incomplete, back then, vast gaps in her knowledge being filled with haughty ideas and feigned open mindedness that was really strident elitism. You were free to be who you wanted to be, just so long as you wanted to be what she thought was best. The she of six months ago was a bit of a dick, to be quite frank. 

She didn’t hold it against herself, though. He’d had the patience, and the foresight to coax her away from that, bring her to herself and then shove her in this damnable skirt. She laughed. In the back of her mind, she fancied he’d made her laugh, despite his absence. 

And she smiled at that. Smiled because he’d come along and been the man to see the blueprint of her, and figure out exactly what needed to be done to finish her off. And he had. Finished her off. 

More than once, in fact.