Staring Into The Eyes Of Lust While Trying To Remeber To Breathe Essay, Research Paper

His face was tranquil and still, the force of

fortitude in the midst of the chaotic flickering of light that danced across his lips. Illuminated as violence played across the screen of the television, he lay at rest across the room: a distance not unconquerable in terms of metrics, but invincible in measures that mattered. His face fell dark as the parallel universe closed a dramatic sequence. The mundane impact of the ?Mute? button only added to the gap bridged solely by the light, as the room was saturated by his regular breathing patterns. In the still silence of the isolation inflicted by the pitch black of outside, his inhalations seemed to shake the walls- providing a rhythm for the choreographic light. The soft sounds of feathers on down comforters made her hold her breath in contrast. As he exhaled, she let her mascara weigh down her eyelids; her own lips parted, allowing the air to roll out in smooth sheets of warmth and innocence. Listening to his simple

breaths, she felt her body tingle as though it were composed of an infinite fluttering body of

butterflies, making her skin seem an intricately passionate living organism. She felt the corners of her lips turn gently upwards in an involuntarily smile. She opened her eyes and rested her gaze upon his face, blue from the television light. His lips twitched and at once she was forced to suppress her urge to kiss them, for fear he might wake and disrupt the moment ? which lasted for whole hours, brimming with the paradox of calm calamity. She immediately withdrew her gaze from his mouth, blinking back and redirecting her look up his top lip and over his nose, settling on his eyes. His eyelids were smooth and delicately thin and she remembered them in their moments of conversation, when they would flicker with excitement and speak the words before his mouth did. Wistfully, she recalled staring deeply into them on occasion, intrigued by the patterns embedded in the irises. But now they lay peacefully, only serving as projection screens to recount the tales of the haphazard light. His head rolled toward his arm, causing a strand of hair to fall gently over his right eye, where it met his eyelashes and embedded them in

an inferno. His hair, she thought. Rock star hair. An accurate representation of his overflowing fa?ade of confidence. She had always detested rock star hair, long and slightly unkempt. But somehow it seemed perfect on him. She sighed deeply, knowing that it had been her job to make sure he didn?t doze off. The time had come for her to kill the moment, just like all of

her fascinations. Apprehensively, she extended her

hand and brushed the hair off of his face, momentarily resting her hand where it stopped at his temple. He rolled slightly and his eyes tremored before slowly opening. He looked up at her and, upon recognition, smiled. ?Hi there,? he said, his voice faintly cracking while he adjusted to the subtle but active world that revolved around him. She leaned into him and gently kissed him on the forehead. ?Hi.? His smile

grew so slightly at her response that only she would have noticed. ?Whatcha up to?? he whispered. But she ignored his question and looked instead into his eyes, which now radiated life. ?You?re beautiful,? she said matter-of-factly. And to this, he looked away and shyly rolled over, facing the television. She abstracted her attention away to the remote that

rested in her left hand. She stroked the side of the black plastic, leaving temporary fingerprints from the oils in her skin. She built up her courage, then hit the ?Mute? button ? filling the room once more with the noise of the television, burying all remaining signs of the previous persona of the complex light ballet. And with this, she was no longer in an infinite space containing parallel galaxies and dances and feathers; instead the room had become just that: a

room. She ran her fingers through the rock star hair as she pretended to pay attention to the movie. And almost as if he had not been oblivious to the life that had surrounded him as he slept, he leaned back to pull her free arm around his shoulders. As he did so, he removed the remote from her hand and let it fall to the floor, kissing her fingertips and settling into the futon.