And after...

Leda and the Swan

A sudden blow, the great wings beating still 

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push 

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

And how can body, laid in that white rush,

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower 

And Agamemnon dead

Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

                                                                       -William Butler Yeats

Yeats alludes to Leda's rape as a "pivotal moment in history" that sets in motion events that lead to the birth of Helen of Troy, to the trauma of Clytemnestra that leads her years later, to conspire in the murder of her husband, Agamemnon. Even after event cascades from this act of Divine lust.

And what of our own acts of lust, divine or otherwise? That I have given in to my own desires with you, seems to have set me on a path. I hope it is not destruction, not one of perdition. That would be too trite. That would make all the bible thumping villains of my past triumph without even trying. I have not struggled and fought and scratched and bit to get to my place in the sun just to be subjected to some fire and brimstone cliche. 

Yet I am changed, irrevocably. I hear people singing under their breath, I see sparkles in little places I have never thought to look. I can see love between two people. How is this possible? I am a strong person, not one given to romantic impulses. Yet after being with you in that furious heat, that gentle afterglow... I am not me anymore. I afraid I have become brave enough to hazard looking for one like you. Or maybe risk looking for you again. 

The Other One

So you went with her. She loves you, you know. I used to think, I should feel sorry for her. She holds on to you like you're some sort of life line. She thinks she is this independent bad ass bitch. She thinks she doesn't need you. But I am like her and I have looked into her eyes. Deep inside, in the secret places of her heart, she loves you. And its like a secret club we have, the women who love you, we recognize each other. But where I have only sympathy, I see in her that primal urge to tear my eyes out. 

I must be fair though. She does her best to control herself. She tries not to call. She tries so hard. So hard. But in the end, she gives in. She skulks in places where you will be, she calls to invite you to places I cannot go. She knows this. She knows me. And still I cannot muster enough anger for her. She is after all, the one you do NOT love. 

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.