It's only yours in that I'm yours

Marek continues to tell you who he is

I don’t want your bathwater, Lilah. I don’t. Is it special just because it’s touched your skin? I don’t think so. I told you, I’m not that kind of creep. Do you think we could be closer if I took your sweat? Would I own you more if I took your blood? No. What is more?

 

We don’t need to be here. 

That kind of sampling, that’s for the desperate. You only do that if you’re trying to prove something to yourself, if you’re grasping at straws for some kind of connection that you just don’t have. That kind of sampling is more like hoarding. I don’t mean to say that your blood isn’t beautiful- it is water, after all. But it’s no more beautiful than anyone else’s just because it came from you.

I swear to you.  Search my collection, Lilah, every vial. Pull them from the window, pile them sparkling on the floor. Dig through the oceans and viscous muck and the dull clear flasks of bottled water. We don’t need to be here. You’ll find blood and spit and sweat, sure, but it’s only yours in that I’m yours. There’s a whole self portrait scattered between last month’s high tides. But it’s mine: type A neg, Marek Virtanen distilled. 

But I suppose you may be right. I collected myself, put every drop on display like an anxious lover. And I had no right. Is it any different, this way? It’s all yours in that I’m yours. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’ve clung too desperately. 

Author's Note

I would appreciate notes on the last paragraph particularly - I feel like it's necessary, but at the moment I kind of hate it.

Reviews

[LJ]

Good writing! The description of blood as water, for example, is a new thought for me. The lines like this: "Pull them from the window, pile them sparkling on the floor" are reasons to keep reading. I also want to solve some of the mystery that shrouds these chapters.

You provide a look at Marek even in his "scattered self-portrait between last month's high tides." But who keep vials such as these? Marek does, and he keeps a lot of them. He's still very particular about what vials he keeps. Lilah's bathwater is not acceptable.

And who is Lilah? I assume she is someone who wants to know Marek better, but maybe it's the other way around. Or both. These questions will be answered, I"m sure, even in oblique asides. You repeat "We don't need to be here" and I'm unsure where 'here' is. Still, it's a clue.

I also feel that the last paragraph is needed. "It's all yours in that I'm yours," is what Marek says to Lilah there, and it's not the first time he says something similar. But clarity seems to begin with that last paragraph, and I hope you don't 'kind of hate it' for long. It intrigues me. These drops on display I see as some of every liquid part of Marek, the watery kind. It makes a fantastic image rise in the mind. And the final statement, "Maybe I've clung too desperately" is perhaps a hint about Lilah and Marek as a couple, or it's about a person clinging to life, or to liquids. Anyway, I hope it's answered a bit more in time. The last paragraph may not have the intricate imagery of the rest here, but it addresses the reader more, and touching base is needed for a home run.
What I'll do now is re-read the first chapter and maybe understand it more. Your writing is so interesting, I wish I could read the entire book this week. Good work.