Longings

I have been sitting with this topic for a little over a week now and really contemplating what I long for.

Last Friday, not this weekend, but the one prior, I had a pretty revelatory session with my own therapist.

Who clearly stated something that I have never been able to articulate.

That I am afraid of my longings.

As soon as he said it, it threw light on so much of my life.

He asked me, “what happened to you when you were younger when you longed for something?”

“I was shamed, humiliated, made fun of,” I answered immediately, there was no pause to think.

My therapist went further, “you were striped naked, you were beaten,” he introjected. “If you longed for something you were going to get hurt.”

Tears filled my eyes.

Fuck.

Of course I am afraid of my longings.

I was also taught a lot of other not so great things.

I’m not enough, I’m ugly, I’m fat, I’ll be alone forever, I’m not lovable was basically the message I got.

I had to earn love, achieve love, work for love.

And so often, I still did not receive it in a way that was healthful for me.

I was eviscerated for my achievements as well.

Mortified by achieving, yet also pushed to achieve.

I have to do everything myself, take care of myself, and defend myself.

Things I learned to do well.

I also have to take care of everyone around me.

I am not allowed desires, dreams, hopes, longings, and if I should voice them I’ll just be ridiculed for those longings.

One of my longings is for romantic intimacy.

Partnership.

Shit.

I just teared up.

That old story, here, right now, I’m not even allowed to talk about that.

Or write about it.

Dare I even post this blog about it?

I think so.

Because.

I am trying something different.

First, that re-engaging with a former ex this past September, a few weeks after Burning Man, was me falling back into the pattern of not letting myself long.

It didn’t work and I extricated myself.

With a lot of help from my people, sitting quietly, listening in to my body–all the reflux flair up that I hadn’t had for years came right back with a fucking vengeance.

And of course, my therapist, “the question is, why do you want to be with someone who is not honest?”

Ouch.

And why?

So I stopped and it ended as it was going to anyway, I knew it wasn’t good for me.

Moving on.

Doing work.

Doing the therapy.

Writing a lot.

Letting go.

Surrendering.

And when I said no to making myself small, all these kinetic, beautiful little miracles started happening.

I got my diploma in the mail the next morning.

I got unstuck with my book project and started a process journal.

I reached out to a photographer and asked to collaborate and got a “I’m very interested!” response and a “let’s meet for coffee.”

I saw a friend I haven’t seen in nearly two years and took her out on her birthday to breakfast.

I started writing the epilogue to my book.

I started blogging again.

I started, trying, I’m not always great at it, but trying, to lean into my longings.

I shifted my schedule a bit to open up my Friday nights so I can socialize more.

I’m digging into really old, deep, entrenched stuff with my therapist.

He said some very interesting things, he usually does, thank god for him, he’s the best therapist I have ever worked with, receently.

Like in my session this Friday.

He reflected that people are drawn to me, but that I project an image and instead of that, what would it look like if I was a magnet instead?

I knew what he meant.

I can have a big personality, I have presence.

For instance.

Dating.

I usually do the asking out, I think I have to, that no one is going to be drawn to me and that my longings will go unseen and that I have to ask, so I do.

A friend told me about this recently, “you come across as boss lady, soften it a bit, no body is going to ask boss lady out.”

Ok then.

Soften.

Draw to me rather than push away.

No more asking out guys.

Wait.

Let myself be asked out.

Actually, I have always, always, longed for this.

I have so infrequently had it happen, it seems a dream to have someone ask me out.

But, I think that it’s because I come across as unapproachable.

And I pine for that which is unavailable–not so much anymore, I am leaning, thank you–which is to say that my action is to focus on what is not really there so not to be hurt if I long for something.

Remember, I was shamed for having desire.

And I’m not talking erotic desire, I’m talking desire for affection, love, conviviality, joy, awe, wonder, laughter, closeness, honesty, play.

And.

I won’t sneeze at erotic desire either.

I am a sensuous being.

I long for touch.

The pandemic was rough yo.

Plus, the surgeries I had last year made it tough too, hard to feel sexy when you’re in pain.

Anyway.

Dating.

It’s back on my plate.

But this time no apps, no asking people out, no projecting out to the world.

Just a softening into the longing, articulating vulnerability, being ok with being messy, messy hair, no make up, well, not all the time, I do love me some lipstick, letting go of the crazy hair (hell my hair is crazy enough on its own) and going back to my natural color and yes, letting it go gray. I am of a certain age, it’s ok.

Just leaning in.

Soft, warm, sweet, longing, Coleman Hawkins on a rainy November night, with misty fog encapsulating street lamps, the heat turned on, the cats cozy curled up next to me, hot, homemade soup in a bowl, and looking out the windows at the darkening sky with longing that soon, yes please, there will be someone sitting next to me, who will put his arm around me and listen to the music with me, kiss the top of my head, and be absolutely ok with just me.

No striving to prove myself or be different, bigger, brighter, shinier, faster, more fabulous.

Just me.

That’s it.

And that is all that I need to be.

Warm, vulnerable me.

Tattoos and Tears

I just want to write you poetry tonight.

I just want to talk to crows and croon love songs to the full moon.

I keep thinking about adding to my Coup de Foudre tattoo.

Hearts and lightning bolts.

More hearts.

An explosion of hearts.

I think about you.

I cry.

Sometimes I yell at you in the car.

“Don’t give up on me, don’t stop chasing me, this is it, this is the push, don’t stop.”

I want you to come for me.

I want to be the one.

I think about not having you for years.

I still dream about being with you for all my years.

I think about my impending PhD.

I ponder the thinking and reading and writing I will have to do.

And maybe you won’t be a distraction.

And maybe you will.

And maybe you will be the carrot I use to get through the program.

He’ll come back to me when I am a doctor.

He’ll come for me.

As though you’re the reward for doing the work.

I want to grow old with you and be stupid and silly and mad.

I want to have dumb arguments with you and then have make up sex.

God.

I haven’t really thought too much about the sex.

I think I am afraid to.

I will get lost in the glory of the memories and beat my heart harder on the wall around you.

I long for you.

I dream about you.

The moon full in the sky beckons me to you.

I think about you walking outside.

I think about you sleeping.

I wish to be wrapped up in your arms.

I long to not be heartbroken.

Heart broke open.

Heart in the mouth of crow flying across the miles to you.

That’s the tattoo I keep thinking about.

A crow on my back flying with a heart in its mouth.

An anatomical heart.

With wild daisies growing out from it.

I feel hollowed out.

I miss you baby.

I miss you much.

This isn’t even a poem.

This isn’t even a blog.

This is just a list, a litany, a compilations of thoughts about you.

I can’t stop thinking about you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I can’t go on without you.

And yet I keep going on.

I have changed and I can’t tell where it is leading me.

I just fervently hope.

Pray.

Wish.

That it leads me back to you.

I just want to be your Buttercup.

I just want to be your baby.

Baby.

I just want to be yours.

Always.

Forever.

Your.

Baby Girl.

Writing You Love Letters

While you sleep.

The tears on my face still drying.

There are things I should do and things I could do.

But all I want.

All I ever want.

Is to be with you.

I want nothing more than to hold you close.

I die a little inside when I think about you being alone.

I don’t want you to be alone, I want you to be seen and held and strong and true.

I want you to know how much, how very much, I love you.

I know you say you know.

I know you do.

I know you know I adore you.

And I cannot stop saying the words.

Like the Raven in that one poem from long ago.

On a dark and dreary night who cannot stop repeating itself.

I repeat and repeat.

And it’s just true.

I can’t stop.

My heart fills with the music you send me.

You a poetry font of expression and longing and joy.

All wrapped up in a 90s love ballad.

You send me love letters in music.

It is the best.

It is beyond the best.

It is you tender and sweet and true.

Oh baby.

I miss you.

I do.

Once upon a time when I was a younger woman, a girl really.

Full of longing and unspoken need.

I would dream of someone like you.

Who would romance me with music.

Who would seduce me with song.

I would dance around my room alone and dream about you.

There are times I feel that I have dreamt you into being.

This revery that I am afraid to wake from.

A beauty so keen.

You have changed me.

I am in the presence of a dream.

I am smote.

You are my undoing.

And.

My doing.

You are my everything.

My dream made real.

My 90s love ballad come true.

 

You Are Seasonal

Not just one season.

Not just the brightness of summer.

The thunderstorms.

The heat.

The lushness.

Yes.

You are all these things.

And.

You are also in the whisperings of fall.

The coolness of your cheekbones

How the falling light glances off

Their planes and there.

A light flares inside me.

A bonfire of longing.

I smell you in this season too.

I sense you in the softening sweetness

Of things ripe and full.

I ripen thinking about that.

Your euphoric smell.

The plushness of your mouth.

An apple cider song.

I suspect I shall see you in all seasons.

All hours.

All days.

How I wish to see what winter light looks like

Upon you.

A snowflake soft explosion such as one cannot imagine.

Bonny boy.

And.

Oh.

Burgeoning spring.

I see you there too.

But it is right now.

In.

This moment.

This cooling of air,

That calls to me.

I wish to hold your hand and kick through

Fallen leaves with you.

To tussle to the ground.

To see your smile, your eyes alight.

I imagine your face framed in golds,

Burnished reds.

Burnt oranges.

Flaming yellows.

Richest browns.

No beauty that surpasses

The handsomeness of your face.

Only a frame to outline its glory.

Another picture I shall hang.

In the gallery.

Of.

My.

Heart.

The Ocean

On your lips after swimming.

The sky falling down at sunset into your eyes.

Muffled piano in the distance and the pull of a low cello string.

The salt of you on my mouth a harbinger of sweetness, this winning

Smile in my tender heart, so shy for you, say you love me it whispers.

Not with words, just with actions, and then with words.

I do not need to hear it.

(I do.)

But say it anyway.

Say it with your hands brushing the hair fallen in my face.

Say it with your eyes, the longing for me there, to not lose me, to keep me to stay.

Here.

In.

This.

Moment.

Where there is no future.

Where there is just now.

Where there is just love.

Say it with the salt of sweat on your brow, the cleft of your cupid bow mouth.

On my mouth.

Say it soft and low and slow and then just stop.

Stop and hold me against you.

Stop and let me be with you.

Let me in.

Stop moving me forward into a place where there is no you, nor is there I.

Stay here.

Stay with me.

Stay.

Where all is star light exploding inside of me.

Where all of you is all of me.

Where the love is fair and bright.

And the dark night is but soft in repose and gentle.

In your arms.

Circled around me.

Where I long to be.

Tasting again the ocean on your lips.

After a swim.

In that love.

And.

Brine.

And

Sea.

Please.

My darling.

Stay with me.

 

Not Quite So Dark

Oh.

For fuck sake.

So here I am trying to be all low-key and down low and not post anything via social media so I stay anonymous.

And.

Um.

hahahahahaha.

Oops.

Turns out I’m completely transparent and known on my own fucking blog.

My “About Me” page had, I say had since I just pulled it down, a photo of me and link, failed link, but still a link, with my gmail account linked to it.

My gmail account is my full name.

Rolls eyes at self.

Ugh.

Fortunately a friend caught it and gave me the heads up.

And the post has been updated to reflect that.

No more photographs of me, no more name on the page.

Just me and my thoughts listening to some Bill Withers.

When I wake up in the morning love and the sunlight hurts my eyes.

…..Just one look at you and I know it’s going to be a lovely day.

Up a little late.

Up a tiny bit wired.

I went to an anniversary party this evening after doing the deal over on Turk and Divisadero this evening and saw a swarm of folks that I hadn’t seen in a while, including one of my best friends who came into the city and my god, it was good.

I had my internship today and lots of errands that I wanted to do and some down time in the afternoon to do laundry and get myself caught up, and I realized that I hadn’t done a good bit of this kind of socializing in a while.

It took me a moment to catch my stride.

I can be charming and funny and outspoken and a character, but the truth is that sometimes I get a bit over my head with social stuff, which is hilarious and most folks have no idea.

I am not going to label myself an introvert or an extrovert, I’m not going to pigeonhole myself, but I will say I felt awkward and I realized it was going to pass and I had a minute to get settled and be in my skin and let it be ok that I was in a big social situation with a lot of people I am acquainted with but perhaps not that close to.

I also needed to be there and be seen and just let myself be not at work or at the internship.

I logged another two hours today at the internship, even went in a little early to do some paper work and get myself situated and eat a lunch quietly in the office before the other interns got there for our session.

I got some good info, gave some good feedback and was mightily pleased that I had clients to talk about.

I am just dipping my toe into the mix and it’s a lot to carry, but I’m starting to do it and I can see that I am doing the thing that I am supposed to do.

Granted when I logged into track my hours I realized that I had done five hours this week, two client hours and three training hours and that my supervisor at the internship wants me to carry a load of 15 hours.

Three times what I did this week.

Sigh.

Granted I may not get up to that speed for a while and there will be times when I’m able to do that and times when I won’t.

I can’t get too focused on it and I also told myself today that in the service of keeping a tiny semblance of sanity that maybe I don’t have to get as many hours as is possible for me to collect while I am in school.

I just need to get the hours required by my program to graduate.

Granted.

I say to myself.

Fuck that shit.

GET IT ALL.

But.

I don’t want to kill myself and I want to have some socializing.

I need face time with people.

I am thinking specifically of a few friends that are just too dear for me to let go of and I will squeeze them in where and when I can and I will be tired and I won’t give a fuck and you only live once and get it.

Get it girl.

Some things may feel overwhelming, but in the day-to-day of it, I’m doing it.

Slowly building up my client base, learning how to be a therapist, learning how to keep loving and taking care of myself and finding those odd hours and minutes in the hollowed spaces of golden sunned afternoon light when I can pause, catch my breath and get hella grateful.

I mean.

Hella.

Grateful.

That I have what I have.

“You look different,” my friend said to me tonight.

And she’s right.

Things in my life have altered in an amazing way and I am beyond myself with happiness and succumbing to all the feelings therein.

Without expectation or thought for future moments.

Ok.

Small white lie, I do have some plans for future travel, but I am trying to really keep it to this day, these scattering of moments, dipped in old school R&B, or Elvis ballads, old love songs and lyrical movements in time, the stars framed by the trees overhead, a snapshot of a moment.

Astounded with beauty.

Awake to every feeling in my body.

And that’s all I can wish for.

This moment.

Where I am alive.

Oh.

And I am so alive.

It is glorious.

Sure.

Might have something to do with the peer pressure cup of coffee I accepted gleefully at the party and perhaps I might have racing thoughts but I have had racing thoughts for weeks now and I am rather used to it and the heart beating in my chest going fast just lets me know how fully alive I am.

It is exquisite and I am unabashed by the feeling of it.

Love.

Love.

That’s where it’s at.

The word that flutters in my chest.

The ache and longing.

The aliveness.

The song on my lips.

The poem in my eyes seeking yours.

The smile that I cannot help but smile.

So fucking good.

This life.

My life.

Luckiest girl in the world.

 

Not The Day Off

I had planned.

Actually.

I hadn’t anything fixed in my plans.

I had some ideas.

And nary a one of them was met.

Fine.

I am alright with that.

It was still a nice day off.

I had therapy in the morning.

I realized when I got there that I had left my phone charging on the table in my tiny kitchen.

I had even noticed it, and said to myself, self, don’t forget that phone, self, your phone is on table.

But.

Well.

Ack.

It was forgotten.

I took it to mean I should be electronically free for a little while.

It was interesting though.

Trying to get into the building where I go for therapy, it has a key code and I couldn’t remember it at first.

I had all the right numbers, as it turns out, I had just not tried them in the correct sequence.

I eventually got in, but it was sort of funny punching in the numbers and wondering how this was going to look to my new therapist.

We did chat a little about me forgetting my phone, happens sometimes when I get moving too fast or I am trying to do too many things, I was folding laundry because I didn’t want to come home to a basket of it and I was a little rushed.

I even remember thinking, really, are you going to be late to therapy because you’re folding leggings and socks?

Get going!

And of course.

I got.

And I forgot.

It was not the end of the world, but I can tell as the weeks just begin to build, that I am scared of what may come up, of the stuff getting unpacked, the things crawling out into the light of day, the raggedy dolly being pulled out from underneath the bed, that the therapeutic alliance is being created and if I trust this woman.

WELL.

Shit might happen.

I was joking with a friend about emotions and naming them and he said, “yeah I know, when this thing happened (insert thing, I don’t remember) I felt like shit.”

I said to him, “shit is not a feeling.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, “I felt like crap.”

We both laughed.

Thing is.

As much as I might be afraid to address the stuff, I do want to shine some light on it, find the wounding, clean it out, heal it and let myself experience more living, more experiences, more joy, more laughter.

I feel like there’s a lot of things that I don’t appreciate enough because I still have these super old defensive mechanisms that kick into place sometimes and I am not always aware of them.

I want to shed them.

I want new tools for my life and experiences.

I want to grow.

I don’t want to stay stuck.

It’s a challenge.

And I’m aware that I may throw a monkey wrench into the process, but I can also see quite well that I am the only thing in my way of moving forward.

So.

I had my session and I scootered back home.

I got my phone, 100% charged, ha.

I texted my friend who I was meeting for lunch and confirmed timing and headed right back out.

We hung out, shot the shit, talked about my trip to Paris.

God.

I could talk about my trip to Paris a lot.

In case you were wondering.

I leave a month from today on May 11th.

One month away.

Four weeks of work.

Three papers.

One weekend of classes.

So close.

I can taste the baguette.

Not that I will be eating any.

Perhaps I should say, smell the baguette.

There is just such a delicious smell to bread in France, the butter they use for the croissants, oof, the smell is heady and rich and so much more nuanced than what I smell from a croissant here.

A few places do get it right.

Tartine has a croissant worth writing about.

Again, not that I have tried any recently, but it is still something magical to ride past the store front on 18th and Guerrero and smell the bread and the pastry being made.

I always reminds me of the smell in Paris on the blocks where there is a good boulangerie.

Grateful again and again that I booked this trip.

I will be missing my darling and pregnant friend with whom I was supposed to be taking  the trip with, however, I know myself, I know my abilities, and I know that I will have a grand time.

I am not afraid to travel on my own, although company is nice, it is not necessary.

I shall create the company I crave.

And that really is all that matters.

Being aware of what my needs are, being able to access them, and take care of them.

Like today.

I just needed to chill out on my friends couch and talk.

Sometimes that is the best thing I can do.

Not do a whole hell of a lot.

Have a nice lunch, hang out, talk, connect with another human being, share adventures in life and make more plans to have more adventures.

I promised myself I was not going to have anything to do with school today or yesterday and that was accomplished.

Perhaps the most important thing was that.

We did leave my friend’s house and have adventures out in the world, running some errands in the SOMA, having coffee at Wicked Grounds, which always amuses, there are few choices for coffee in the SOMA and who doesn’t want to go to a sex positive coffee-house in the leather district in San Francisco?

Hello.

Their coffee is not the best, but when you don’t have a choice, it will work, and the crowd is always eclectic, and the scenery is fun to check out and it’s cheeky and cute.

We ended up giving up our table to a group that were coming in to run a rope bondage workshop.

I love San Francisco.

Then I headed back to the Castro, caught a quick bite and did the deal with my person.

It was a perfect.

Lovely.

Low key day off.

Hell.

I even snuck in a little self-care session when I got home.

Heh.

I am ready to go back to work tomorrow and I even have time to unwind with a video and some more hot tea before calling it a night.

Tomorrow the work and school grind is back on.

And that’s ok.

Because at the end of the tunnel.

Light.

The golden flares of brilliance off the edges of the Seine at sunset, the river smote with light, swans, and the Eiffel Tower in the distance, a dream, just there, smitten with the smell of baking bread, adrift in the dust motes of love scattered there on the waves.

Yes.

I see you Paris.

Please do wait for me.

I will be there soon.

Je t’aime Paris.

Trop bisoux pour toi.

I’m Done With This Week

I know.

I know.

I still have tomorrow to deal with, but it’s just been so off kilter this whole week.

Finding out I basically can’t do Burning Man, that still is surreal.

The losing the keys.

The weird hours and days when I have been at work, but the family hasn’t been there.

The play date I didn’t know about that was an all day play date.

Ugh.

I am done with this week.

Seriously.

One more day and then back to “normal.”

I know, there really is no normal in my life, heh, but, there are schedules and times and routines that I have a longing for.

I’m flexible, but I feel like I have been ultra flexible this week and that it has sort of bit me in the ass.

That being said it was nice to get out of work early tonight and hit up a spot I haven’t been in months and see some familiar faces and get the message I needed to hear and be accountable to my recovery.

Good stuff.

And tomorrow is Friday and Friday does go by quick.

I will be going into work early again and then I’m helping out with a commitment at my normal Friday night spot, I’ll have a little time in between, perhaps a little sit down somewhere, maybe dinner out on my own, or a little snuggle down in a big leather chair in a cafe I like with my not school book book.

I’ve started my reading for the next round of classes but I haven’t really got too far into it since things have been so up and down all this week.

All in my head, mostly, in my heart.

It still seems crazy that I can’t do Burning Man.

Although I did offer the family that I was going to nanny with an option to have me for half the time, but I haven’t heard back and I don’t suspect that it will work for them.

I think I just have to surrender to the idea that this is really not happening for me this year.

I haven’t told the family I work with full time that I won’t be going yet, I guess that’s the next step, but I found myself way too busy and yet with scads of down time–a play date can be a lot of extra work and it can also be an awesome distraction that keeps my charges engaged and busy–to take up the discussion.

I’ll let it play out when it’s appropriate.

Today was not appropriate.

It was really good to see the boys though.

Really good.

“Carmen, Carmen, Carmen, I missed you!” This littlest guy flung himself at me and hugged me fierce and long.

“I missed you too bug, a lot,” I squished him and squeezed him and ruffled his hair and kissed him.

“I missed you too,” I told the older boy who was deep into the Magna tiles when I came in this morning.

He sort of grunted at me and continued playing.

Yet, just a few minutes later when I had hung up my jacket and put my lunch in the fridge and taken care of sorting myself out, he crawled right into my lap and happily let me hug him and catch up and listen to tales of travel and adventures.

It was a very sweet reunion.

I could tell they were actually a little upset that tomorrow is Friday and the last day that they will get to see me before it’s the weekend again.

“But you’ll be back here Monday, won’t you,” the oldest ask with much seriousness.

“Yes, all back to normal,” I said and kissed his face.

Even though change is coming.

Change is always coming.

I keep wondering what I will be doing instead of going to Burning Man.

Will I be sitting in the playground with the boys?

Will I be sitting next to another, friend or lover?

I haven’t spent that time of the year in San Francisco for ten years.

It is a ways off, I don’t have to focus on it, in fact, I don’t want to focus on it.

I have school to do, life to do, recovery to take care of, dating to get on.

Not that I have any other dates lined up.

But I am open to the experience.

I haven’t had any success with Tinder since last week, which was a great success, so I ain’t hating, I’m just interested in having another date.

Doesn’t necessarily have to culminate in what I got to experience last time, but I would like to continue trying and experiencing.

Plus.

It’s nice to be kissed.

Really nice.

My successful assignation hasn’t text me since he’s gotten back in town.  I know he’s back not because I’m stalking the man, thanks, but because the app tells you how near or far a person is.

He’s about seven miles out.

Makes sense.

I’m in the Outer Sunset and he’s, er, heh, seven miles in another direction.

But I’m not interested in pursuing.

He knows my number.

It’s not rejection, not being called, it just means that there’s another door to knock on, or another person to answer to who may be knocking at my door.

I can’t know if I’m turned around and facing the corner focusing on getting what I want.

So often what I want doesn’t serve.

Hey God who do you want me to date next?

Make it obvious ok?

Thanks!

No, really, thanks.

I don’t always pay attention to the obvious clues.

Unless they are married, then oh, I can totally tell.

Ha.

That happened the other night, I was being shined at and it was super flattering until I shined back a little and then realized, oh wait, god damn it, that’s a wedding band.

I usually look for that first.

I mean right away.

I don’t like to flirt with married guys.

It does NOT go well for me.

That’s another blog another time.

I don’t also do well with recently separated or divorced guys, too hot too fast, I tend to be some sort of rebound girl.

“I’m going to be that girl at Burning Man you talk about in stories later,” I laughed and stroked his cheek bones.  He fluttered his eyes open, emerald green and sincere, so, so sincere, and we all believe that sometimes, or I do, don’t I, that sincerest, deep stare straight inside your heart.

“Nope, you are not, you are so much more that that girl at Burning Man,” he said and then tucked curls behind my head, dusty curls, but curls none the less.

“I won’t ever forget this, you, the sacred and the profane, Jesus, you are beautiful,” he turned to face me and I could see the mountains out the camper window dusty, impervious, majestic in the distance, the smudge of playa dust at the bottom a haze of golden shimmer.

I stopped protesting my role in his life, accepted the love being offered and lapped it from his hand like a thirsty woman parched for love in the desert of her high noon soul.

Maybe it’s better I’m not going to Burning Man this year.

But I sure am going to miss it.

Something awful.

Something fierce.

Even though I do believe that Nature, who abhors a vacuum will but something more spectacular in its place, it’s just hard to see it from the welling of tears in my eyes.

This too shall pass.

It always does.

And in it’s place what is always left.

Will remain.

Love.

It is the only thing that fills the vacuum.

It always has.

It always will.

I just don’t know what it looks like.

And that is alright too.

Probably better that I don’t know, I’d try and fuck it up.

Here’s to new possibility.

Dreams.

Adventures.

And always.

Here’s to.

Love.

 

 

 

Ne Me Quitte Pas

Mon cherie.

I miss you so.

And I come up for air.

A hot bowl of soup on a cold night.

A warm face to say to, happy I am today, how are you?

Love fills my heart and it stills my face and then I sit and stare at the walls and wish that the light was still there.

But it is the dark.

The night of winter.

The cold laying frost.

The dormant.

Before the growth.

That is what I believe.

And there is so much love, so much grace, so much more than you can ever imagine, than I can ever imagine and I sing poetry under my breath wishing to encapsulate it all.

I cannot though.

There is a fullness, a fire, a heat, a warmth, a softness, a softening, an astounding, a tenderness, and it aches with all that it does.

I just wrote “id.”

Freudian slip.

Excuse me.

Where was I?

I digress.

She’ll break her own heart.

A beautiful death, that.

And a poem for you that I wrote, aching and full and saddened in the seeping twilight sky that bled rain through the ragged grey clouds outside the window of my class Thursday morning.

I am Going to Go Now

The unwinding inevitable, the snowflake dredged with grime

A kissing time, a hand print fingered dove grey

Soot smeared and dusted with transitory crimes–

Passion pushed, outlined darkling cashmere fey.

Smudged with the meaning of God, gold patterned

Euthanasia, impacted without you, focused after life

Fabled and unique.  This too is true.  Maneuvered

Polite, we dance the waltz of unspoken strife

Rife with lusted desire.  Pagan with practice

Patience and archetypal, the sparked pointed Southern

Crossing resurrected, convicted by love, the chalice

Over full, the wetness on my lips, the flight, a turn,

Rebirth, the exodus of uncertainty belies my certainty

Of you and our luminous connecting, a mastered calamity.

I am grateful for passing time, even when it pains in the passing.

I have felt achey and full and wide open and perhaps that has something, everything, to being in school these last three days.  Not a night in three that I got more than five hours sleep, not a day that didn’t go by where there weren’t tears.

I am in school to be a therapist.

The tears, they do happen.

They happen sometimes in class, sometimes after, sometimes, more times this past week than I really wanted to, when I went to bed, the slip of tears on my face.

Potentially lonely/perpetually human/suspended and/open/open.

OPEN.

So wide open.

So painfully, wide open.

It feels like my heart is on a plate, not silver, not a platter, but a plate, bone china, the cusp of the new moon gilding the edge.

It’s a good place to be.

This teetering on the cusp.

It sounds painful.

And.

Yes.

It is.

And yet, so alive.

So exquisite.

So enlivened.

So playful, when I don’t feel shattered in the leavings of my old idea and the imprinting of the new upon that smote landscape of love and loss and longing.

Smote.

That is how it feels.

Searing.

The grief rolls through, over, and plunges me down and there, a stillness, a pearlescent shell, a spiral, the nautilus, the tiny chambers of soul lit phosphorescent and gilt.

I climb in and float away.

This embedded moment brought to you by listening to too much Regina Spektor (but oh, there is no such thing as too much, not really not ever) and the sad sweetness of end times and new beginnings.

I had my last class today of the semester.

I had a long day, a long week, a big weekend and now, it’s back to work.

With a brief moment of respite in the evening with a friend over soup and Thai food over in the hood.

I have had so much happen over this past six months and it astounds and I look about and I realize I have almost made it and there is still so much more to go, so more to be realized.

So much more of me to be realized.

And so.

And so.

So.

I don’t understand/if I kiss you where it’s sharp/if I kiss you were it’s sore/will you feel better?/better/better/will you feel anything at all.

ANYTHING AT ALL.

Oh.

I will.

I assure you, I will feel all the feels.

Little fuckers.

I am feeling all of them.

Grateful that tonight I will get a full night’s sleep, and yes, there could be more tears on the pillow, tears aren’t such a bad thing, my small dulcet downfall, the shallow sip of sea salt on my cheeks, the flush of my face against the sheet pulled up by my head, the crush of the weight of love and the foolish tender softness of dreams that push themselves into the wet lashes resting on the tops of my cheeks.

The stars, that old light, the seeps in between the cracks.

The liminality of love.

The threshold to the moon.

I watched the sky today while I sat in the student kitchen, the bright, high blue, the push of scudded white bounded clouds, the flight of a seagull in between the buildings.

I ate an apple with sea salt sprinkled over it.

I thought about eating apples, walking the streets of Paris, cold and scared and alive and undone and all done back up again.

I go back in a week.

I thought about Paris.

I thought about the paintings.

Kandinsky, Accent en Rose, at the Pompidou.

Kandisky-Accent in Rose

I thought about the alone.

I thought about the aliveness in me.

I felt the lonely and the alive and the love and let it wash over me, the soar of the gull in the sky, the press of the blue, the powder of the clouds, the clock over the counter winding down the minutes to my last class of the day.

That much closer.

Still so far away.

A reckoning on the horizon.

Love in the streets, the cobblestones smothered in shine and light from the lamp posts, the impossible sparkle of the Eiffel Tower.

Dazzle

And my heart a glow.

A small spot, a spiral of ember over the ocean, the rushing sea, the Christmas tree burning on the edge of the water, the beach a bonfire of holiness and the beckoning of the North Star.

I know not into what I walk.

But I walk ever forward.

Joy smeared and sacred with the smut of my own carnal life, the living.

It is good.

Don’t let me fool you.

It is all good.

So good.

So overwhelmingly painfully.

Wonderfully.

Good.

It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.

It does.

I am still the love smitten fool.

Who would I be?

If I weren’t wearing my heart on my sleeve.

At least it goes well with my clothes for Paris.

Transparent authenticity usually does.

And perfect attire for riding to the top of the ferris wheel.

I’ll blow you kisses from the pinnacle.

I promise.

They may be burnished bittersweet.

But.

They will.

Be.

All.

Mine.