Father Time and his inconsistent touch

"Girl, your sex is on fire"

-Kings of Leon

An apology for keeping the sex of my words from your – please fill in the blank with lewd words to describe the sex organ of choice. For a scattering of days I was an injured animal crouched defensively in the corner licking my wounds. I shied away from the benign hand of writing each time she reached for my wounded fingers. Persistent, I finally consented. This is the carnal release of my emotional affair with the English language.

A six hour solitary drive begets deep diving. With a swim cap fastened upon pinned curls and a polka-dot bathing suit glued to my torso, I clicked the static of the radio to silent and dived into the muddy waters of my thoughts. A preoccupation with Father Time materialized as I passed the state line; the fickle nature of this immutably white-bearded man, and of the dual sides of his touch. I thought of his hands, and how the wrinkled skin must feel against the skin of another when his minutes, hours, and days fall over a body coiled in sorrow.

My heart breaks at the slightest infraction; I recalled the most recent, my lips still pricked with the blood of his kisses, his smell still lingering at the cracks, my automatic reach for bitterness still present at the discharged letters of his name. Time uses the tender back of his hand against my skin still fingerprinted with masculine impressions. The back of his hand is made from dimpled wrinkles, ridges of flesh, and spotted with the badges of age, the skin malleable and vulnerable. A suspected backhand to the face becomes the reverse of a stroke. The grooves of skin travel along the new and aching skin left behind; the layer of love exfoliated. A small dispatched outfit of minutes clears the field for the cavalry of days, sent to trample over the indigenous people, to clear the land for the gentlemen of years to ride in atop their chestnut horses; a caravan of new settlers make their home on the kidnapped land.

The land outside the window had turned flat, only small shrubs, a handful of cattle, and patches of fields that expanded beyond the horizon remained. I flipped the visor down (do as I say and not as I do) and scrutinized the wrinkles around my eyes – Time beginning to caress with the underside of his hand. His palm is calloused from a perpetual existence of laundry washing; the skin puckered from the water and detergent. Perhaps, I thought, an investment in a laundry service is needed. Time cleans the messes of a life, and his palms wear the skin of a world filled with human mistakes. This side falls upon the body as the years pass. His gentle side reserved for the sufferers of heartbreak, and the harsh for the aging.

Skin creams, botox, and the refusal to smile will preserve my youthful exterior, but I began to muse over a pill or surgery that could replace the backhand of Time, and an end to the entire need of him. I spent the rest of my road-trip struggling to formulate an alternative, only to concede as the night fell and the Denver lights hulked, that there was none.