Bless Me Father

Chapter Eight

"Say it." I told him firmly, after taking a good look at the whole situation. Love. It's funny, because I can't for the life of me remember the last time I'd heard the words- without being in regards to drugs. And with Joel, I knew it was a pure kind of love- all perversions and obsessions aside. There was nothing to him that would make you question is motives, because he had none. Just a small voice from which his feelings of need could escape. I had one of those same voids- only I tried for so long to fill it with drugs that the void was some gaping hole. I never knew how alone I really felt until I remembered how amazing love could be. And when I looked at him again, he had the aura around him- some kind of glow that was evident to me. Maybe it was the drugs in my system- hightening my senses like they often did. Or if it could really be seen. But there was just something beautiful to him standing in the middle of my floor that night, chest still heaving slightly from all the comotion..
He didn't have to say it. I felt it regardless, but everyone- myself included- loves to get those tiny little knots in their stomach apon actually having heard them verbalized. Like the magic words simply weren't as good if they aren't expressed.
"You say it." He challenged- and as he raised one of his eyebrows I couldn't help but crack a rather large smile shaking my head. He was just as scared as me- from the look on his face. The words were like kryptonite in most situations, because I had no time for them in my life. What was love- but something to slow me down? Something to bother me from time to time.
"That was mature." I said through a set of tiny chuckles still shaking my head, "Five minutes ago you were ready to jump down my pants and now you can't say something like that to me? Ya know in a true spelling bee you'd of had to repeat the word at the end of spelling it. Just to be gramatically correct..." I popped to him while pulling my grungy black shirt over my shoulders- tossing it down onto the uncarpeted floor. Looking around again I sighed feverishly at my surroundings, not exactly the Hilton in Beverly Hills by any means. And he could see past that- for what? Of coarse that was the other down side to relationships for me- the self examination process. Joel himself- he had problems, that was obvious. But me? I WAS a problem, that was the conclusion I had always came to. So naturally in the beginings of things, I tend to question exactly what it is I could offer to them. Other than a good laugh. People like me slip through the cracks of society and no one looks our way.
"Well in a spelling Bee you'd also get a trophy but it's obvious I'm not going to get one of those either..." He started to me slowly, still smiling at me timidly- eyes drifting down to my now naked upper body. I felt my face flush a soft crimson color at the though- I had always been so self conscious of my body, even since before I'd started screwing it up myself. My thin, lanky frame so awkward and skeleton like. The plethera of tattoos cluttering my boney arms like colored grafiti- over the years I'd collected them, I guess in part to try and draw attention away from the fact that the forearms themselves were covered in ugly red welps and bruises. The injection site, what a mess. Before I realized it I brought both my arms up to cross across my chest- hiding the marks. A self conscious nitch I suppose, something I always just use to do. "It's okay..." He spoke up, as if reading my mind- or at least my body language. Both of his shakey hands moved up to take hold of my arms pulling at them lightly. His touch serving as some sort of calming mechanism, forcing me to instantly drop my arms to my sides again. I should have know better than to be self conscious around him- because for some fucked up reason he didn't see what everyone else saw. "I don't care about them." He assured me, while running the palm of his hand slowly over the crook of my elbow- over the masses of sickening trackmarks and collapsed viens, the soft skin of his palm causing tiny goosebumps to form along the back of my neck. There truely was no bad touch from that boy.
"They're ugly." I mumbled like a child- still embarassed over the fact. Because people who don't shoot up drugs, they don't understand. They don't have to look at them everyday- day in and day out. They don't have to watch them grow- they just look at them in disgust. But not the kind of disgust that I got from them, the disgust of shame. The kind of disgust that went right along with being judgemental.
"They don't make you who you are.." He assure me still rubbing my arms comfortingly. The friction of his hands causing a warming sensation through my entire body. A warm- almost fuzzy feeling. But it was a different fuzzy, something different than the fuzzy feeling I already had.
"Yeah right. They are what I am. I am a drug addict and that's a waste. I hate these marks- sometimes I think they're getting worse.." I confessed to him, looking into his eyes slowly. The subject was so taboo to me, I'd never dared share those sort of things with anyone else.
"Everyone has things on their body they dont like." He tried to comfort me again, but the words were some what worthless- because they didn't really seem to fit the situation all that great.
"Yeah people got issues with their nose..or their thighs or their fucking eyes Joel- shit their body comes with. I am covered in fucking needle holes- pussing, bruised up disgusting needle holes! And you're trying to tell me that its okay?" I rattled, trying to make him see exactly how touchy of a subject it had become.
"That's not true. They are just marks..they don't matter. I have marks too." He spilled out quickly- and by the look in his eyes I could tell he'd said that before he'd even had time to think about it. But it was too late, I had heard it and was already curious.
"what kind of marks?" I then popped back to him, moving closer to him- the the point we were nearly chest to chest, just looking at him. But instead of answering me, I watched rather intrigued as he shucked the tshirt from his thin form- exposing a pale chest full of blue almost purple splotches. I was speechless.
"Don't say anything...other than you love me....please.."