Monday, February 16, 2015

love is a verb

twenty eleven

I knew I shouldn't have divulged like that.

So early, in the dark... With the lights out, his facial expression was concealed (if he even had one).

I love you. I said, though I couldn't be sure it was true. He just felt so big to me. Like someone who could finish what he started. Like someone whose arms fit right around my damage, my weary, my hope.

Before that, all he had ever mustered up to say was I think I'm falling for you after three or four too many drinks. Since the first night we met, it was no secret that I don't play hard to get. I was there for the taking. But instead I found myself giving (against my therapist's advice).

He didn't respond right away (he never does). But at least he held my hand through the night.




twenty fifteen

No one has ever asked for the privilege like that.

As if this were our first time and he wasn't sure if I might regret it in the morning. Tonight, it is my expression that is hidden.

May I make love to you? Plain words, but disarmingly sincere. He whispered in a voice very new to me. To be honest, the phrase make love solicits a somewhat hostile disfavorIt sounds trite. And it reminds me of New Year's night years ago when my sister was a baby and my step-dad insisted on making love to my mother in a hotel room so small I could feel their breath from the adjacent double bed. So, I guess that means I much prefer to fuck. Perhaps because my ex husband treated me like a B-side porn star. Perhaps because then, at least I know exactly what currency with which to bargain. Perhaps because I don't know the difference between a good love and a good fuck (giving it, getting it, wanting it).

A barely audible yes.


Saturday, January 10, 2015

in the first degree



first glance
first kiss
first touch
first chance

Where does love go if it does not die?
If it never fizzles, fractures, or morphs into something ugly?
If it is not burned at the stake or strangled empty of all its good intentions?
If two people choose to walk away from a worthy thing because love is not enough?

Where does love go when we are simply…
over?

Will my lost love be shunted into a bank of unclaimed property, collecting dust until something triggers memory of its existence?
Will my saved love burn holes in my pockets and trickle out the bottoms until I have nothing left to give?
Or will I give it away too freely to underserving beneficiaries, uneducated of its value?
Will my quiet love find peace in another heart, in another town?
Will I bury it within my body, only until I explode with the madness of missed possibility?
Will I rest it on a shelf, high above arms reach, so that I can see but cannot touch?
(Please, God) Will this love fade into something more tolerable?
Or will it become impossible to say his name without resentment?

I am quite sure that love like this cannot die of natural causes.

No, love like this must be murdered.