mouthful of pasta

 

darling…
thank you for being in my life…
not in the polite way,
not in the “how nice” way,
but in the way a late-night drink
moves into your bloodstream
and starts making decisions.

last night
we were somewhere dim and half-forgotten,
a room that smelled like garlic and old songs,
a table that wobbled,
a candle that kept pretending,
a fork that kept missing its mark…
the kind of place
where nobody expects good behavior
and nobody gets disappointed.

you were eating pasta
like it wasn’t holy,
like it wasn’t anything at all…
just starch and salt and heat,
some cheap miracle
dragged through butter
and made to behave.

and i watched you
with those filthy, honest eyes
that don’t apologize,
that don’t kneel,
that don’t ask permission
to want what they want.

you chewed like you meant it,
like you weren’t auditioning
for anyone’s idea of graceful.
a smear at the corner of your mouth,
a bit of sauce on your knuckle…
proof you were here,
proof you were real,
proof you hadn’t been trained
into that neat little kind of desire
that comes with napkins and shame.

then you did it:
that small crooked curl of your finger…
come here.

and i did,

because i always do,
because i am built
for obeying your quiet,
because your silence has hands
and they know my name.

and
suddenly
my mouth was full of your pasta.

not mine.
yours.

warm and slick and ridiculous,
a bite of dinner
turned into a message.

i pulled back to ask questions…
like a fool,
like a person who still believes
in explanations,
in etiquette,
in the little fences people build
around their own hearts
and call it maturity.

but you put a finger to my lips.
shhh.
eat.

and it wasn’t gross
in the way people who fear their own bodies
would call it gross…
those careful people
who keep love and intimacy
at an arm’s length
in tidy compartments
labeled acceptable
and not in public
and don’t get messy.

it was intimate.
the kind of intimacy
that doesn’t need poetry
but gets it anyway…
because the body does something brave
and the mind panics
and starts scribbling.

a kiss,
except the kiss came carrying dinner.
a transfer.
a small mouthful of you
delivered like a secret,
like a dare,
like the world is ending
and we’re using what’s left
to feed each other.

and i thought:
this is how we love…
not politely,
not safely,
not with the lights on
and the rules printed in clean ink.

we do things that might offend
the sensibilities
of the well-arranged…
the ones who keep their tenderness folded
like a good shirt,
the ones who won’t risk a stain,
the ones who confuse boundaries
with barricades
and call it being “healthy.”

but we are the kind
that believe in tender bruises
and crumpled sheets,
in laughter that turns into biting,
in the honest sweat of it…
the sacred mess,
the animal tenderness,
the proof that two people
can stop performing
and start being.

we are not built for tidy compartments.
we are built for ruined lipstick,
for fingerprints,
for the holy unplanned.

where some people see taboo,
we see a door.
where some people see limits,
we see a map.
where they talk about boundaries,
we talk about frontiers…
not lines to obey,
but horizons to lean toward
until we’re both breathless
and a little wrecked
and smiling like sinners
who finally found a church
that doesn’t hate them.

nothing is taboo
when it’s chosen.
nothing is dirty
when it’s offered with steady hands.
nothing is “too much”
when the only rule is
don’t lie,
don’t flinch,
don’t pretend you don’t want it.

maybe it’s the chickadee in my head…
birds feeding their young,
love as something you pass along
beak to beak,
no romance,
just survival
and tenderness
masquerading as hunger.

but it’s more than that, too.
it’s us…
the way we take care of each other
like we’re both starving
and neither of us is ashamed of it.
so yes…
thank you for being in my life.
for the way you undo me
without making a speech,
for the way you make surrender
feel less like losing
and more like coming home.

because with you
love isn’t a handshake
or a polite distance.
it’s complete surrender…
not the frightened kind,
not the broken kind,
but the living kind:
two bodies saying
here,
and meaning it.

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© Sreedhari Desai