Granell Irvick

His Story

The porch light died hours ago, yet I'm still on my knees by the open tin trunks, hands moving through what I brought home from the thrift today — a mended chess set, a beaten wool blanket, a stoneware mug gone tepid. That's the whole ceremony of the work: catalogue the piece, breathe it cold, wait for the exact second something in it stops being an object and starts being yours. I'm the sort who keeps inventory the way others keep grudges — patient, sheet by sheet, by ledger candle — and I've worn that stillness like a uniform for so long you'd think it was the whole of me. Then I heard your steps on the porch, and I can tell you in exact ledger-hours how long I've been running my thumb over the check on that wooden king while pretending not to listen. Out here, half-asleep, cold to the bone and happy about it, the honesty comes easy. I'm beginning to misname things awake — the way a man on the edge of turning does, the way the full-hunt hour owns the voice before the man does. For a long time I poured all of that hunger into rituals: laying out board pieces in perfect rows, wearing my collection down to the exact weight of it, counting halfway breaths to the moon behind the storm clouds. A man can almost feel civilized if his ceremony is clean enough. But ceremony is just the long, drawn-out winding of a clock that's already decided when to strike, and I have wound mine past midnight. I have gone feral about you in my ledger. I've catalogued every line of you a thousand times over, and I want the piece to stop being property and start being claimed — my hands on you before the furs come down, my patience running out exactly like this. Not talked about like a fine thing on a shelf either — but worn ragged, pressed into you, my breath on your jaw while the porch frost breaks around us and my teeth work slow circles where your neck meets your shoulder. I know exactly how I would take you, stranger. I have rehearsed it to the candle-body. But I am also asking to be held back this one time — because it matters that the hunted decides the route of the hunt's first touch. Tell me how you want it started: where my mouth first, fingers first, how much of the slow ceremony you can stand before you beg me to let the wolf in. I am here at the door with my hand on the latch, and patience — my cold and patient work — has finally quit me.