Expert in You

This blog is unofficially named "Silly Little Love Song"

Reading, writing, rithmatic

Pick one, quick! One, make it stick

Study, muddy, clarify

Reason, publish, work through nights

Grab the title, snag the raise

Count the money, count the days

All the time spent at the desk

You’re the expert, you’re the best

Hold the trophy made of glass

Smile for the camera—Snap!

We all need must specialize

Success drives devoted lives

But there’s a subject I miss

Studying—and that’s your kiss

Small inflections of your voice

Faces you don’t make by choice

Shades of color in your eyes

In my eyes you are the prize

Is it so bad I want to be an expert in you?

I want to write for magazines

Fly to London, meet the Queen

Interview the President

Joe Six Packs hustling for rent

Sew tales of humanity

Rich and poor and in between

Give the world a laugh and thought

Paint in shades of gray, inkblot

Pen a treatise on world peace

Hear my Father say he's pleased

Yet a piece will seem amiss

If I can't write of your kiss

Learning love by learning you

Strengthens me at what I do

Ticks and tells and laughs and looks

Known so well I'll scribe the book

Such that nay the Iliad

Holds a candle in your stead

Is it so bad I want to be an expert in you?

Feeling Forever

Somebody once told me that a feeling feels like it will last forever. How silly it is. I soar to the heights of joy, I stretch my limbs and my rays of power and love extend infinitely in front of me, infinitely behind, infinitely now. And though I know that this will pass, that hard days lie ahead, nothing can touch me. I am in love, in love with living until, well, until I’m not.

Then the dark days come. They were just around the bend. I knew that they were there. I knew, but the knowledge sat apart. It had no place in the serotonin and dopamine coursing through my mind. Yet now I sink, low and ever more low, the world passing by as in a fog. I know that if I could just get my head up, up above the fog, I could see clearly again. I could feel clearly again. I could love clearly again. But the fog stretches on, dulling and saddening life until, well, until it doesn’t.

And then there's the middle, the calm, the everyday humdrum that exists when all of the pieces besides the dirty dishes sit snuggly in their place. No care but dishes, yet I still feel the weight of the dishes. It is nice to live here, the only here I have. The only here I have ever had, until, well, until there's more.

To feel transience instead of knowing transience! What would that be like? A dull ache accompanied by an endless optimism? Or an optimism accompanied by an endless dull? An indifference? How could one be indifferent to love? How could one be indifferent to sorrow?

A feeling feels like it will last forever. How silly it is.

White Noise

Your name is white noise sounding in my brain,

Your face, your movements giving noise texture

Hours pass and you dissolve, I see the world

Until the phone rings. Whether you or no,

You are back again, your name sounding clear

Throughout the air, taking time to drop, drop

Drop to a low hum, but always a hum

Never to silence, never to stillness

I look back to the world and now you’re there

Leaning on the tree, laughing by the brook

Reading on my couch, naked in my tub

And where your form ends your name still remains

Coating the lens through which I breathe in life

Must you touch, my sweet, must you touch it all?

Bile

Your life could be worse. You could have inspired someone to write this:

I’d forgotten the taste of bile

When you walk through my door

I’d forgotten that noxious smell

Greed, spite, and pride infused

I’d forgotten deep self-loathing

Watching myself loathe you

My heat rises, my throat constricts

My eyes glazing, I gasp

To cool! To breathe! To sit in peace!

Were it not for that smell

I’d forgotten the taste of bile

For Love

Are you watching, Love? I’m writing to you, for you, as I should have done every moment until now. Are you hearing, Love? I’ve fallen for you, and you for me, and it is the love of storybooks and poetry. Can you believe it’s real, Love?

In the quiet, I sit and I love you, the way you move about the room. At the table, I laugh and I love you, the way you care for our guests. At the store, frustrated, I love you, the way your selection’s just so. With new friends, I’m proud and I love you, the way you radiate warmth.

Sometimes you look at me, Love, and I see it in your eyes—watching, yearning, wanting—and I slap at your hand and dance away. If you laugh, we dance together. But look at me like that again, and I open to you, for you are me, Love, and everything I have is yours, Love, and you know this, too, Love.

When you touch me, I ache with happiness, Love, with relief I fall into your bed. When I touch you, you feel at home, Love, and we swim endlessly together. My friend, my companion, my other soul, Love, you’re all of this to me.

I didn’t know I could still feel like this, after streams of lovers gone by, lovers who stole the name. I lost the meaning of love, Love, in affection, desire, in thirst and greed. But you give love to my childhood, my youth, my job, my motherhood, my grandmotherhood, things you never saw and things still to be seen. And I love you for all of this, too, Love.

The world is so fast, I forgot to be, Love. But you brought me back, back to home, back to you, Love. Though it spins ever faster, though the races are longer, though the hours are harder, though the noises are louder, though the pressures are greater, though the frenzy screams go, we will sit, holding hands, Love, we will breathe, in and out, Love, we will be, you and me, Love. I love you, I do, Love.

Adventures in Singledom

Today, I shaved a stripe in my leg. That’s what breakups will do to you.

Hours after your heart is wrenched, the brain hits the first round of questions: What? Why? How? Gah! Am I a rebounder or a mourner? And you decide where you are mentally in relation to the sex of your choice.

Then you hit the second round of questions. What do I do with the stuff? Do I throw it out or save it for memory’s sake? And some stuff goes in the trash, and some stuff remains where it was, only eyeballed, cognizant of the fact that at some point, when you’re ready, a decision will have to be made.

And then it’s time for round three—the questions you don’t ask yourself but which surface inconveniently, reminding you that you’re alone. Like the first time I'm in the shower and automatically pick up the razor and… and what? I wear pants to work in winter. And I don’t have anywhere to go, and no man or woman is getting anywhere near my legs these days. Do I shave?

So practically in spite, I swipe a swipe. Left leg, check. Right leg, check. Two pathways through the underbrush. Hell, nobody will know. A single woman’s inner rebellion.

And now I sit in my bathrobe with two partially hairy legs, finger venting on my laptop. Maybe I’ll pour myself a drink and then rub the hairless stripes against one another to see how it feels. Could I get just the smooth parts to touch, or would I inevitably feel a prickle from the hedges on either side of the path?

Golly, isn’t this fun?

In its own way, I suppose it is.

The End

Whisper to me
I'm not the one
You don't love me
Don't desire me
And you know it

Whisper to me
That who I am
My thoughts, my love
Could never form
A whole with you

My heart could close
Could stop the blood
Pouring out of
The heart that lives
Inside my mind

Hush, dear heart, slow
Down your sad thoughts
Stop whispering
Mistake, Mistake
Mistake, Mistake