We are Broken Glass

Perhaps what I’m most scared of, is that I’ll take away something that is rightfully hers.

Useless, pointless, meaningless relationships that every human being has a right (and a need) to experience, to hate, to dread, and to leave behind. Fiery, hollow, blurry nights of passion with no one in particular, or with someone of particular importance. Intoxication, travel, love (or otherwise) and opportunities.

I watch her as she boils the kettle, and floats around my kitchen. She is dressed in nothing but a shirt and boxers, and seems perfectly comfortable in my presence, for someone who in all honestly, knows me so little.
Her untamed, brown curls drape across her chest and move over her shoulder blades as she hums and sings while she pours water into two mugs- coffee for me, green tea for herself.

I used to think the humming and singing were a nervous tic until she moved in. Then I realised music is how she moves. Her singing voice is not perfect, but it is not awful, either. It’s simply hers. She can whistle better than most women I know.

As she walks to sit with me by the coffee table, I can’t help but feel we are, somehow, two kindred spirits. In fact, the only thing of much difference between Josie and I is our age.

You see, if I were a few years older, I would be old enough to be Josie’s father. (A young father I’ll admit, but I am still conscious of this fact). Josie may be twenty, and she may sometimes appear to be somewhat of an old soul, but in the eyes of my peers (or rather- the exes who sneer in the supermarket and ask if this is my niece), she is barely a woman. Her frame is slight, her smile is wide, and her personality is engaging. But she can be fragile, indecisive, irrational, and I can’t help but be her protector and guardian.
Though I know Josie should go and see the world, the way I did fifteen years ago, I impose my desires on her. I influence her decisions. I coaxed her here, into this apartment, into this city, away from her country, away from university and away from friends her own age.

And this is exactly what I mean when I say I am afraid of taking away the experiences that are rightfully hers. I make an impression on her even though deep down, I know I probably shouldn’t. Though I know that this nubile, lascivious woman with perfect hips that taper to her waist should ultimately experience everything possible, I’m trying to take that away.
And part of me doesn’t care.
Part of me just relishes the passion between the sheets, the curve of her back against the palm of my hand, the warmth of her smile when she wakes up next to me.
Part of me believes her when she says love should know no barriers, age or otherwise, and part of me believes her when she says that everyone’s world view is constantly changing, so I cannot say she is too young to know what she is doing with me.

And part of me knows I am lying.
Like Josie (though she vehemently denies being one herself), I am an artist. I am self-centred, self-indulgent and self-aware. I have claimed to know Josie better than anyone- and little by little, she began to believe me.
I suppose the fact that she is now sitting opposite me with bare legs is evidence that I have succeeded in seducing her halfway across the globe. I have succumbed to the most fatal of human follies, as Henry James called it; our not having known when to stop.

And do I love her? In some capacity, perhaps I do. Am I just being selfish? Of course. But I’d already told Josie I was an asshole.
Time will tell if she listened.