Heating and Cooling--A Work in Progress

"Sure, come over so we can emotionally destroy one another. It's for my art." I'd said this as a joke. But I'm no longer laughing.

  

"Maybe I no longer find you smart, charming, or funny." I never said that. Not out loud. Never out loud.

"A tulip in the desert won't last long." You knew this to be true, you who claim to love nothing but your children and "hedonistic adventures." At least you love something. A man who loves something can never be truly evil.

I believe you loved me, but at the same time, somehow, deep down in my darkest heart, I also knew you played with my feelings. As if other people's feelings somehow weren't altogether real to you. As if you never trusted me to love you if I knew the truth. The truth of your fragility and terror. Life has been so cruel to you. I know. I smile and say nothing. We risk being subjected to worse cruelties.

But you have many cruelties.

I still can't escape the feeling that we've done this, all of this, before. There were portents; signs to be read and interpreted. We are familiar and yet do not know each other. Why did I even write this for you? In part, because you're so breathtakingly perfect that it makes my soul ache. I still have this fantasy of you. The perfect you. The dream I had of you and I in perfect union.

The Goodbye Notebook

You were lost to me the first moment I set eyes on you. I just didn't know it.

There is a universe where we are together and there is a universe where we are not.

There is a universe where I stroke your hair and give you the sun;
you are happy but 

I am not.

I want the light of the cold blue moon to touch my heart


                   to be loved for my mind and nothing more; it’s okay 
to change your mind.

Analogy of Simile

It's like pain yet also unlike pain
It's like feeling yet also unlike feeling
It's like love and yet

Sick Rose

You are a cultivated rose; imprisoned

unaware of your hybridity. Or that you’ve lost

your sense

for sharp, painful beauty.

I am a cactus flower; tenuous

in my hard case of thorns. Impatient

for the night. 

in which I bloom.

Beneath the stars I stole for you.

No Second Tony

Lover, tyrant, hero-God, my Achilles
heel, cruel tiger, sweetest love,

Beautiful blue-eyed boy,

perfection,
cruelty
Sharp lines (lies)
A tongue

A curved
dagger.

A fatal flaw
pain from pleasure
inseparable. Glass
splinters

shattered inside all
succor
implied pleasure.

You will break
me a thousand
times over.
Save yourself.

just cut me open

leave me in peace
(pieces?)

which knife?

I, ritualized self-abuse
You, solitary vice

I, now you, a tyrannical beast
we don’t make it easy
the terrible things echo and crack
     gunshots
    in a mountain
        valley

Abstraction Distraction Loss

I sit and I read
Poetry
by
the light
of
the moon
I listen
to
Bats
Birdsong
the sounds of
Night
None of it brings
Me closer
to
You

The Stain of Love

The stain of love covers
everything

Foolish one broken and bruised
the winged fiend

the foul jab
the artless arrow fling

Destroyer, Preserver
oh the sting.

The Siren's call
answered

I should have let it ring.

Mashup Messup Remix No More Redux

There were adventures, words, you're beautiful. Sometimes supportive, honest, intense intimacy. Too intense. Dancing in dreams. I thought you could hear me. To dance is to live. Kissing until you forgot your name. I've forgotten my name. I thought you could hear me. Messing up each others' lives. Denying the truth. Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies. What did it matter? Nothing else mattered. I thought you could hear me.

La Douleur Exquise

I always knew the end was nigh. I'd hoped otherwise, but I knew that was foolish. That way lies madness.

"Tell me about your lacerations," he said, flashing that deadly smile. I knew I was done for.

Ode to an Achilles Heel

The perfect masculine aesthetic:
6'2" eyes of blue
strong silent
type. Good
with mechanical device
or in the wild.

I was enthralled. Sybaritic.
I thought it was you
wrong spent
hype. Good
between my sheets
or in the wild.

Our first touch--synesthetic.
Dreamt in shades of blue
taste bud bent
hue. Typed. Bad.
In your arms
home and so much sad.

A Long Drive to Nowhere

The truth is I may never know what I wanted from you. I only knew what I didn't want. I didn't want what you gave me; even if I needed it. Which sounds completely ungrateful. I'm sorry. I can't think of two more terrible words to use. I want to say, "thank you." But I can't. I'm sorry. I know you are too. I'm not sure how we ended up here. It's not what either of us wanted. And yet, here we are. We both drove us to this point.

This destination was never on my map. Maybe that's part of the problem. I wasn't looking at maps. I was too busy reading the signs. None of the signs I read pointed here. Maybe I misread. There were other signs. Portents. I left a book on the counter and fled because the pages burned my fingers. It felt accusatory, especially the section titled "LOVE TIPS." A stranger had marked the places where things fell apart. Outlined the detours and wrong turns we'd taken to end up here.

It's so easy to misunderstand. I ignore the obvious in favor of the subtext. So much between us was subtextual. We were beneath the surface before we'd even defined the outlines. I was drowning. Maybe you were too.

Today, I wanted to say I was sorry. But what difference would that make? You already know. The apologies lie between us like broken teacups we've forgotten to sweep up. We've cut ourselves open on the shards and these tiny pieces remain embedded in our skin. You'd be surprised how long a piece of splintered porcelain can remain under your skin. I had a fragment of Noritake in my palm for five years. It was too far below the surface to remove. I could feel it under the skin, but had to wait until it worked itself out. Maybe it will be like that for us too.

Head Over Heels

I'd only ever learned to love with the force of a supernova. The purity of spring rain. I try to distance myself and be pragmatic about it. But I'm not pragmatic. I am quixotic, tempestuous, my own worst enemy. Fear. Fear because falling too hard leads to getting fucked over. I expect it. Create it. Self-fulfilling prophecy. I push you away and then accuse you of running. I wish you would stay.