She's Nobody's Girl

Isis: Egyptian Goddess of Love, Death, and Life

Silky strands of blackened flax
Lay gently across smooth patches of olive skin
Her warm breath teasing my shoulder
She will come and go as she pleases
I am weaker than weakness
Knowing that our futures will not be shared
I am powerless
Loving her

We all remember our first love in a way that we cannot remember the rest. Our first act of passion leaves a lasting mark, though sometimes it more resembles a scar or an open wound than it does a healthy patch of dermis. Maybe it was my vulnerability at time, maybe it was really something, maybe I was delusional, and maybe it was all of the above. One doesn’t have the benefit of rational hindsight when in the midst of it, and even 14 years later, I can’t be truly objective about the whole affair. I still think about her and I still wonder.

I have loved in between then and now, and memories of her don’t really cloud my love for another anymore. She has gone from being an icon, to a shadow, then a distant silhouette, to a faint cloud that passes in a far off sky, but she is still hovering around in the back of my psyche, tempting and warning me all at once. She was my first love, and though not the deepest or most caring of the loves I’ve experienced, it was certainly the most powerful. Yet, because of who she was, and most likely continues to be, it was not to last.

People have a lot of different ideas about love and what love should be or feel like. Some associate love with sex, responsibility, friendship, and honor. Love is a chemical reaction. Thoughts and feelings of pleasure set those chemical reactions into motion. Touch will also do that, as would anything else pleasurable. Maybe I’m just older now, and the juices don’t flow like they used to. Some say that I am jaded. I experience my current love as one that is lasting, deep, and calm like a fresh water inland lake, teeming with life within and around its lush banks. Everyone and everything comes to drink from it, and feels safe resting along its quiet beach or swimming in her sun-warmed waters.

My first love was not such a tranquil experience. She was like riding the rapids. No exaggeration there. Her highs and lows engulfed everything around her. When she gave herself to me sexually and spoke to me of love, I felt like the whole world was mine and I couldn’t get enough of her. Everywhere I went she was there and I saw her in everything. I was possessed in mind and body by her. She probably smiled to herself thinking just that. Was it merely lust? If lust can do that to man, then I say please! Do it again! But just for a little while. I’m not as young as I used to be.

She taught me how use passion, how to enjoy sex, how to have love, how to mourn, and how to recover. Oh, make no mistake in this regard, she had no intention of teaching me anything. She always had her own motives for anything she did. I may never know exactly why she loved me, or claimed to. She knew her power, and I was not its first or last victim. There was a latent romantic inside me that she brought out and then killed without a care, very much like someone who wished to adorn their home with a houseplant, but then forgets to water it or leaves it outdoors in a frost. I know that she cannot be thinking of me as I am thinking, all these years later, of her.

Perhaps she flew from the ones who loved her because she didn’t wish to be trapped or end up a centerpiece on someone’s emotional dinner-table. Perhaps she crushed men’s hearts and souls because she was secretly mad at them for having power over her at some point, and she sought to even the score. Perhaps she bored quickly. Perhaps she sought an escape. Perhaps she was just plain cruel. Perhaps it was something much deeper. Maybe it was fear of herself.

There is a song by Bonnie Raitt called “Nobody’s Girl”. If you knew this woman I’m speaking of, you’d know it was written about her(and me.)

She don't need anybody to tell her she's pretty
She's heard it every single day of her life
He's got to wonder what she sees in him when there’s so many others
Standing in line
She gives herself to him, but he's still on the outside.
She's alone in this world
She's nobody's girl
She's nobody's girl
She shows up at his doorstep in the middle of the night
Then she disappears for weeks at a time
Just enough to keep him wanting more
But never is he satisfied
And he's left to pick up the pieces
Wondering what does he do this for
She's off in her own little world
She's nobody's girl
She's nobody's girl
He said, Before I met her, I didn't love nothing.
I could take it or leave it,
That was okay, but, she brings out a want in me, of things I didn't even
Know that I need.
She does anything she wants, anytime she wants to.
With anyone, you know, she wants it all.
Still she gets all upset over the least little thing
When you hurt her, it makes you feel so small.
And she's a walking contradiction, but I ache for her inside.
She's fragile like a string of pearls,
She's nobody's girl.
She's nobody's girl.
She's nobody's girl.