They slipped briskly into an intimacy
from which they never recovered.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald —
intimate bliss…
what we give, what we gain…
There’s nothing more intimate in life than simply being understood.
And understanding someone else.
– Brad Metzer –
love anything…
we say…
This is what we say:
There is nothing special about the way you make me feel.
A thousand thoughts have done it before.
There is nothing unique about the way you touch me.
A million dreams have done the same.
At least
this is what we say.
This is what we say
when the clouds shield moon from stars
and her from him
or him from her.
This is what we say
and we’re not wrong
as long as we say we’re right.
And as long as we stay in the clouds
we stay blind.
No matter the thousands or millions before
or after
we stay and never move.
This is what we forget:
We forget what moved us was his smell
after a day in the world without you.
We forget what moved us was her smile
how her touch found you in the forgotten secrets of your skin.
We forget how contentment feels listening to her voice
and feeling his hand take yours.
We forget that we can ask.
We forget that we can Be.
We forget that we can confess.
We forget that we are one another’s need.
We forget
that we are unlike any other
yet wholly like the other
entirely ourselves.
Matched.
Lost and found
until we find our way again.
I want.
I need.
I desire.
Yes.
I accept.
At least
This is what we say.
– Lola Moi –
what does it feel like to be alive?
… Living, you stand under a waterfall. You leave the sleeping shore deliberately; you shed your dusty clothes, pick your barefoot way over the high, slippery rocks, hold your breath, choose your footing, and step into the waterfall. The hard water pelts your skull, bangs in bits on your shoulders and arms. The strong water dashes down beside you and you feel it along your calves and thighs rising roughly backup, up to the roiling surface, full of bubbles that slide up your skin or break on you at full speed. Can you breathe here? Here where the force is the greatest and only the strength of your neck holds the river out of your face. Yes, you can breathe even here. You could learn to live like this. And you can, if you concentrate, even look out at the peaceful far bank where you try to raise your arms. What a racket in your ears, what a scattershot pummeling!
It is time pounding at you, time. Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation’s short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.”
– Annie Dillard –
he was here…
She had no need to ask why he had come.
She knew as certainly as if he had told her
that he was here to be where she was.
– Leo Tolstoy –
a promise worth keeping…
This breath between us is for the givingness of time.
This look between us is the click-click of heels – someone’s, not mine.
This touch between us, a moment quickly forgotten.
This imprint of your kiss, stolen.
This breath between us is the forgiveness of time.
We will go forward reaching back.
We are blind even as we hope, with each whisper
We will become what we deserve.
– Lola Moi –
a ritual to read to each other…
If you don’t know the kind of person I am
and I don’t know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant’s tail,
but if one wanders the circus won’t find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider—
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep,
the signals we give—yes or no, or maybe—
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
– William Stafford –
rawr…
Dear Gentle Sir,
This hunger aches; it spreads through every inch of me. It takes me in and turns me inside out, over and over again. It makes me forget that I am me, this hunger. This heat of desire, this need, and impossible want, reveals me – shows to me the self that I have never truly known. And each time you see me and accept me, you reintroduce me to myself. You are a magician and I become a mystery. With you, even the familiar seems a surprise.
Tonight, I think of you.
I think of you and hunger… or maybe it’s the other way around.
Rawr,
Lola Moi xo