Creative Writing from
Fairleigh Dickinson University

Anti-muse

Carlos Caprioli

My girlfriend fails to earn the conventional muse title. Her beauty is unquestionable, classic even. Tall, blonde, and blue eyed, her legs are thin, her breasts protrude every sweater she wears, and she hosts a gorgeous smile and a coquette laugh that drives me crazy when it's summoned by others. Her long legs and abdomen place her head above the crowd, so that when she enters a room, all heads turn towards that emerging sun, while I angrily fight off the glances that she seems not to notice. No one has ever been more attracted to a woman as I with her, yet writing by her side or with her around is a futile effort.
      The only inspiration she rises in me is to leave everything and go chasing after her, smacking her behind, pinching her sides, capturing her with arms around her soft, white stomach and wide shoulders, while she tries to run down dark hallways.
      Then, like a muse, she appears on my shoulder; but she only rests there. Her mouth is silent, her kisses wet on my neck while watching movies, after making love, or what she prompts most: doing nothing, which beats doing anything with anyone else.
      I wait for the whispering secret to an intrinsically amorous poem, or at least the guiding light to a decent short story. But she talks about celebrities or friends or newly acquired philosophies that she plans to implant on her everyday life, only to forget them tomorrow. And nothing breaks the white sea of my screen.
      She positions herself as a muse, but inspires only time spent staring at the ceiling, or at our criss-crossed feet, as she tries to keep herself warm, her bones and veins pushing up against my hard soles.
      Nothing's new, yet every time there's something different. Eight New Year's Eve kisses were shared, some by phone, some in long embraces. Personalities and interests were adopted and dropped, hairstyles patiently acquired and suddenly destroyed, bruises and family deaths endured, friends tip-toed in just to fly out of the country, likes and dislikes changed by the moment, and her tired face has still shown up on my shoulder, her lips raising the invisible hairs on my neck, her pale cheek pushed up by my structure, her face disfigured and still beautiful.
      Sharing that mouth becomes the hardest thought. Her tongue danced in other mouths in sexual kisses when fights and time apart found us seeking other nests in which to learn, and the elated feeling of my discovering other gorgeous beings quickly diminished when word came that she was doing the same, even more.
      But it never occurred to me that she didn't want to be mine, and she proved it, always ready to leave her new engagements and join me for a good time staring at the ceiling, fighting with our feet.
      Our different cultures meshed and we are immersed in our own sub-world, a bubble, tiny but durable, where half words make sense, moans tell a story, and where spacing out with chipped paint and burnt light bulbs, my arm around her waist, hers around my neck, is an evening out.
      We eat inventions in the kitchen, washing it down with gulps straight from the bottle. Shouts and curses entice wrestling matches she always wins, but where I also emerge with victory.
      Then duty calls and certain nights are spent away. I drink with friends and talk to strippers while she dances with guys who try their best to dethrone me. Jealousy arrives and with it a new reason to bite and scratch each other, an incentive to mark our territory. But in both our faces it's discernible that someone else is waiting for us when we get out of the bar, the club, the party. That there is no need to go off with a skinny Russian immigrant or bulky frat boy into the sunset. That if we decided, we could flip them off and run to a cold bed and quickly warm it up together.
      No bitterness is present over the lack of creative inspiration with Jen. There are other fish in the sea and time away is still valued. Tensions and problems arise, but there is also the ironic opportunity to miss one another and strengthen the pull we have on the other. A quick peek into other paths that could have been, or that could be whenever so desired. Only to reinforce the confidence of the choice already made. So that when we see each other, I can just stare at the ceiling, while her face contorts softly on my body. And I'm flipping everyone off. She inspires love and little else.