Loving

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping from that chair she sat in,

Time you Thief, who love to get

Sweets in your list, put that in!

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad, 

Say that health and wealth have missed me,

Say I'm growing old but add,

Jenny kissed me. 

           Leigh Taylor Hunt

William Butler Yeats called them "your moments of glad grace." That time of your life when youth brightens your being, your skin and heart are new.

Do you remember being in love? That time when we could not get enough of each other. Leaving your company felt like being rendered asunder -- another poetic phrase... Well, its because emotions like that make you think of poetry. There is so much growing inside your chest, you just want to, need to, burst into song, but a lack of opportunity, talent or lyricism drives you alternative literature. One you would not normally understand, but seems suddenly revealed, or glimpsed.

How strange to be like this. Giddy. Counting minutes. Thinking incessantly of the other. Savoring details. Yes, I do remember... This was life before the train wreck. 

Far Away

Geez, you moron, its called a break up. You know, as in "break" apart?

Leave already. Quit hanging around as though you still want to be friends. I don't want to be friends and you did say you were going back to her.

Fine. That means you are going away.

I do not want you around with that look on your face as though you're feeling sorry for me. I'm fine. Go away.

Go far away where I do not have to think about where you put your heart this time. Far away so that I do not find it and glue you back together and help you learn to live again. Far away means you match your body with your heart, because it keeps leaving everytime I patch it up.

I do not want to hear from you or see you at my door. I do not want to see you because it breaks my heart, but I keep hearing it beating in your chest.

Shatter

When they say "break up" most people think of a separation, two people regaining identities separate from the singularity that they once were. Almost like a cell division where the one become two. Still the same. Still a part of each other. But by now separate and distinct personalities. But rather than a growth -- unless one thinks of cancer cells -- it is instead a reclaiming of the self -- two became one then one became two again.. And in that sense, separation is indeed far better.

When I say break up, however, I do not think of one becoming two. Instead I think of a shattered mirror -- where I am left with little pieces of me one cannot put together again, just one small pile of glittering pain. Sometimes I think of a relationship as that moment when a rock, hurled at a mirror touches it and that moment is suspended forever. Eventually, the crash will come and I will break into tiny little pieces. The rock could possibly get nicked but is usually whole. But that moment, that moment when rock simply touches the mirror, so much happens. Sometimes that moment can last for years, with both sides suffering the illusion that they are indeed One, despite the differences, despite the virtual invincibility of one and the frailty of the other, despite the inevitable... And sometimes that moment is so beautiful, a perfect jewel reflected in bits of glass...

So sometimes I pray, to the Holiness beyond me, to save that moment of happiness when everything was alright between two very different people, where they are touching and communing and being together, loving -- perhaps not enough to slow the momentum or deviate from its course, but loving deeply and completely-- that precious moment before I shatter...

Here Be Dragons

You asked me to explain my interests and beliefs in the paranormal, and after much hesitation, I did. I was hesitant because we had only been dating for a short while. One look at your befuddled face was enough to make me shut up about it and resign myself to being "dating friends," When you would manage a weak joke about ("Forget your broom, today, baby?") I pointedly ignored you and would mumble the freedom of religion clause under my breath... like a mantra. That you never told me your beliefs nor did I ever ask, was indicative of just how much I did not want to share that particular aspect of my life.

And then one day, you gave me a bit of jewelry. A dragon. With red eyes. All convoluted like a tattoo. It spoke to me of the resurgence of the worship of the Ancient Ones in a generation that has recovered the ability to see magick and to lose the Christian imposed suspicion of the subtle energies.

You thought it was strange and grotesque and sooo me. And you sat, wide-eyed, watching me when I told you what it was about. You didn't buy the whole esoteric thing, but you did sit still enough to listen.

There was a conversion that night. I thought, "Hey, it could happen. This could be something." I call it "hope" but my best friend, who saw me after that night, she calls it "love."

For you

I'm tired of fighting you and not being able to explain that I am actually fighting for you. Fighting to keep you. Fighting to keep us together when everything I see says that we are falling apart.

But helplessly -- and I am not a helpless person -- the harder I hold on, the faster you slip away. Pride alone keeps me from screaming at you, "Why don't you love me anymore!?" Because deep inside I do not think it should be possible that the one man that I love so deeply, could choose to walk away from what we had.

I am not the first to want to believe and to compel myself to believe that I must step back and step away. That I must trust that I have loved you enough and that somewhere inside you, you still love me enough to come back. I know it may take eons -- maybe even lifetimes-- but that you will eventually come back. You always have and you always will.

Talk to me baby

Whats a four letter word, ending in "k" that means social intercourse?

TALK

And how we talk. By text. By phone. In bed. Sometimes you can't stop long enough to let me brush my teeth. Always with hilarious results.

Sometimes when we get busy, the lines fall silent. But one text message will result in a flurry, flying back and forth, teasing, teaching, story telling. That's probably why we don't miss each other too much. Even if we're on opposite ends of the world, as our work brings us sometimes, chatty emails, instant messages, international texts are tech friends making real the connection between us that must exist in the ether.

Telling you about my day or what you heard is making love without the crassness of phone or cyber sex. I hear words like the mundane things you're doing -- grabbing some coffee on my way to my next meeting, sweetie -- but in the unspoken there is so much more. You take me with you, on your journeys, and you are with me in mine. I can watch your heart grow. I can see us in twenty years, two old people gabbing away like we hadn't seen each other in bed last night. Maybe holding hands then, instead of phones.

Loser City, Winner Town

I'm the type of person most people hate. All my sibs took piano lessons, but I was a natural at it. Tried out for basketball, became co-captain, tried out for the swim team, made nationals. I decided I wanted to sing, and I passed every audition that came my way. Tried out for plays, got mostly leads. Am not even half bad at my chosen profession, crowded though the field may be. Money comes easily and life, well, I used to think I had it all figured out.

Yet somehow, I always pick the losers. The guys who leave. The ones who don't have it in them to stay the course. The ones who get distracted. The one whose insecurities are like those aliens in monster flicks whose tentacles suddenly burst out of their host chest and ensnare everyone within reach -- which usually meant me. Even had one whose sexual deviations could inspire countless talk show hosts' top tens. The look on his face when I said "No" was priceless, as he was in the process of showing off his toys while talking about his mother. I'm a magnet for every nut case and a sucker for their stories.

But the worst of the lot aren't the weirdos -- I didn't come off the assembly line myself -- its the ones who look normal and act normal that do the most damage. They're the ones who do everything right... at the start. They know the rules of etiquette, pull out your chair, love your family, help you across the street, wonder at the losers who let you go. These creatures lull you into complacency. They make you believe that a future is possible. That maybe, just maybe you finally got it right, after kissing so many frogs.

If you're lucky, you get an explanation when they leave. Some say they couldn't stand the competition (huh? it was a contest to see who is more successful?), one was married and I never knew (that was MY idiocy), jealousy (again, huh?). A couple have said I scared them. One in particular said he couldn't stand that he could never win an argument.

I guess its because I'm stubborn that I can't understand this walking away business. While some things have come easy, on the important things, the ones I really want, I work on it. I map out strategies in my head, anticipate every scenario. I study and I study hard. I exhaust sources, hunt down materials and techniques. I immerse myself and I eat, sleep, drink the one thing I want until I have it. If I run out of fuel, I find a way a glide. If there is opposition, I fight. I dig in, defend my position, then relentlessly attack. I'm vicious.

The point, is that I'm no quitter. I stay. I stay and I will fight for people I love. I will fight to keep them. I will fight to make things right or better. And I always fight this urge to believe that they leave because they can't stand me. That its all my fault. Yet somehow, deep inside, I know its not a coincidence. So many guys couldn't be wrong. 

Huh?

Why do I blog anonymously, someone once asked -- because he couldn't find my blog. Well, its because I hate to Facebook-ize a blog. People think that every creative work is a literal one. That if you post a story about unrequited love, you are in the throes of it. If you post that you are disappointed people think its a status message. Geez.

Anonymity allows me a bit of creative freedom. I post a memory and I don't have people clucking over my recent act of stupidity that is so unbecoming of the likes of me (in my real life, I'm allegedly pretty respectable). I can empathize with someone and internalize their feelings, write about great loves and not have to worry about people wondering, who the hell is she talking about? Do we know him? Worse, I don't have ex-boyfriends peering into this and thinking, was that about me? She's still hung over me? Oh please, get over yourself. Hah. Even worse, present boyfriends may bring these up in a moment of pettiness and it won't be a pretty sight.

In short, anonymity provides me with a measure of freedom, the kind that novelists have. People don't parse their novels thinking he or she must have a had a depraved childhood. My short stories do not contain clues to my personality, and my essays are usually about what I think, rather than what I have been through myself.

I love the internet.

Ideas

I have a confession to make. I don't masturbate. And I feel so alone.

Whenever I feel these urges, I reach for my... phone. I've heard about this thing called phone-sex, but somehow, I haven't found an appropriately shaped Nokia. So I talk it to death. I mean, nothing kills an urge faster than talking with my friends who have children below the age of five. Two seconds into the conversation, you hear a tiny voice in the background saying, "Mommy, I think I stuck a coin up my nose..."

But for those days when I'm really alone, I think of my ex. And then I fall instantly asleep. That would be my first ex boyfriend of course. Thinking of the second one just makes me giggle uncontrollably. I mean, size does matter sometimes, right? Oh, okay size matters only when its under four or over eight. And by that, I mean inches. I haven't gone metric there yet. Too tough to think in terms of centimeters. Some don't even make it that far. Mili is all they will ever be when they're excited.

So yeah... masturbation is man's best friend. But for women -- or for me anyway -- I get kinda picky and obsessive. I've heard about dildos of course. But I've also heard about the Chinese toy warning that toxic paints are being used on them, and that sort of killed the buzz for me. And lets not talk about my nail polish either. Or my nail polish remover.

So porn for me is out too. Its like reading a menu and then being told by the waiter that they're fresh out of everything you want. I think that's what happened to my old television set. I busted its screen. I mistook it for a waiter.

I was told that blogging is like masturbation, but I found out that the endings aren't the same. Oh well...

Thoughts on Wall Street

I wonder if the cops beating up demonstrators on Wall street and other such areas of protest feel the crunch of the bone of the teenager they just shoved face down onto the street. I wonder if I will face you across a barricade, and feel your disinterested boot on my back.

We are so different in everything. But the water that makes up your beautiful body is the same that fills my cells and my brain. In bed there is no seam between what was yours and mine. When you are inside me, I am inside you.

But tomorrow you will raise your fist against my beliefs and I will kiss your tears tonight.

Night

I can't sleep. Its 3AM. And I'm not drunk. I am in love. And being in love means I live in fear of losing you everyday.

It is a realization that I must admit with no small measure of pain. I have wrestled with this, tried to ignore it, tried to beat it to the ground inside myself. Instead, it has resulted in a weakness. I have hung on to you. My heart has gone mad. I make irrational decisions. You, on the other hand, have accepted the situation with the equanimity of an old man on death row, calm in the belief that the end signifies a better, albeit unknown beginning somewhere.

But my chest is twisted at the idea that I will not be in that future.

And then there is him. The Other. The one whose siren call I cannot resist. He pulls me to him in ways that are unimaginable, in the dark secret places that breathe desire. The Universe conspires in the magnetism.

Weak. That is what I am. Pathetic and weak. I know that you love me. I know you have and will further defy deities, forces of nature. Beyond notions of juvenile romance, you do not fear the unknown. You are strong, have proven your strength while I am reduced to a foolish and vain shadow trying to hold on to forces going in opposite directions, knowing it is futile, knowing that the longer I hold on, the longer I hurt you. And yes, him, too.

I used to think that letting go is the path of the weak. I thought that holding on was fighting the good fight. I did not know that in doing so, I was making you the enemy, making you the victim.

Confession is not good for the soul. I see these words I have written and I see myself. There is no cleansing in this self mutilation.

Exotica

Changing attitudes towards sex and love make for interesting stories, and that's what this blog is about, mostly. Its not about me. Its about the stories of love and sex and habits and myths and the sheer and utter loneliness that counterpoints all of it. Some people find that a groping in the dark, a simple need to connect with another human being can lead to all manner of strange places. Anonymity can sometimes bring about the twenty minutes of true affection found in some niche in a subway between to male prostitutes or twenty years of holding a friend's hand leads to some profound revelation of one's inability to tell between pure hatred and misery and a deep and abiding amor.

The others all demand love from me. Love and sex. I can't give them either. I can offer only illusions. You would kill me if you knew.