Bellies

by Nicola Dinan

Sometimes understanding Ming felt like treading water, and sometimes I was ashamed for not knowing its depth.

And maybe that was the final cruelty upon cruelty, to intensify the not wanting to think about her and thinking about her in tandem.

that’s kind of how relationships work, right? You’re just building, most of the time blindfolded, just trusting that your neighbor’s building too. But I guess there’s always that worry you’ll take your blindfold off and see an empty plot of land in front of you.”

I didn’t want to talk about her, but it was a war between reason and impulse, a craving for tailspin.

I thought about how life repackages and regifts and counterfeits.

“I’m speaking the shame away. I’m showing you my belly.” “What?” “It’s this analogy we’re using in therapy,” she said. “There’s a lot of fear in showing it, for some animals. Because you’re at risk of being mauled.” I nodded slowly. “Our insides aren’t worth much to other people, I guess.” “Some people,” she said. “It sounds like hippie bullshit, but I think the risk is worth it. It’s how you learn who cares, and it stops you from punishing yourself so much for being you.”

laughed again because time felt stupid, because at one end of the curtain I was an imposter and at the other end I felt special, and I didn’t know if that change was powerful or wondrous or fragile or all of those things combined.

I was shocked at how quickly I’d capitulated, denying myself what I needed to accept what he wanted. And I knew it was because part of me believed that I was lucky to get what I was given, that there would never be anybody else.

She asked me if I was an actor, something only actors did.

Those looks come from a place of either hate or lust, and I’ve learned that those things often aren’t far apart.

Grief makes dominoes of thoughts, the line of a spiral all leading back to the same thing.

I want to hold him, but find myself rooted to the chair. A hug from me could be a violation. I don’t know what it means to touch someone when I know their body so well, whether it worsens the intrusion.

Some memories harden into land mines. I don’t know where the pressure points are.

I don’t know the difference between someone needing me and me loving them.”