the best thing…

… is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds.

There is only one thing for it then — to learn.

Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.

— T.H. White —

too often in life…

The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.

Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves-or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature.

Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what?

Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

— Sophie Scholl —

wide awake, on tiptoe…

They are patient and wise, these barely-feminine hands of mine. They seek. They know truth before I do – this is the scent they follow.

I cup your beautiful face. My hands guide me as words get lost in your eyes, in the thick lump that forms in my throat. As I trace, my fingers taste you, your fear, your need and your hunger. Along your jaw, over your lips, around your ears, sliding down and around your neck.

Something about your skin cradled against mine heats me – my cheeks, the nape of my neck, my soft soft cunt-folds.  My caress guides us both to a resting place – a place beyond, sourced from a breath-like tremble.

I have been told that my hands are intoxicating but only when touching you, do I sense some of what that might mean. I’m almost afraid to touch you more – to learn you are less than you trust me to hold.

Already I feel the full force of being seen by one who will not fully choose me and in that same breath, I defy the shadow of all we cannot be.

wide awake, on tiptoe

the couple in the park…

A man walks alone in the park and beside him a woman walks, also alone. How does one know? It is as though a line exists between them, like a line on a playing field. And yet, in a photograph they might appear a married couple, weary of each other and of the many winters they have endured together. At another time, they might be strangers about to meet by accident. She drops her book; stooping to pick it up, she touches, by accident, his hand and her heart springs open like a child’s music box. And out of the box comes a little ballerina made of wood. I have created this, the man thinks; though she can only whirl in place, still she is a dancer of some kind, not simply a block of wood. This must explain the puzzling music coming from the trees.

the couple in the park
— Louise Glück —

hours continuing long…

Hours continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,

Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and un-frequented
spot, seating myself, leaning my face in my
hands;

Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding
swiftly the country roads, or through the city streets, or
pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries;

Hours discouraged, distracted—for the one I cannot content
myself without, soon I saw him content himself without
me;

Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are pass-
ing, but I believe I am never to forget!)

Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed—but it is useless
—I am what I am;)

Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have the
like, out of the like feelings?

Is there even one other like me—distracted—his friend, his
lover, lost to him?

Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning, de-
jected, thinking who is lost to him? and at night, awak-
ing, think who is lost?

Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless? harbor
his anguish and passion?

Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name,
bring the fit back upon him, taciturn and deprest?

Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he
see the face of his hours reflected?

— Walt Whitman —

not our darkness that most frightens…

You sit in the light for me because I ask you to. You wait. You stroke my leg with a secret smile, and let me drink you in. I lose myself in my looking, in all your shadowed man-grooves. I lose my breath in your stillness. This pause we take is a lesson I don’t want to forget. I close my eyes; I want to imprint you deeper. When I open them, there you are – still waiting – wanting to be seen.

We are learning to be with one another, here, in this light that softens the heated edge of an afternoon delight. You lean back and even from this distance, I can taste your skin. Even as my supple clit thickens and my lips whet, you wait for me to be done with you. And in such thots, we stumble. Headlong, we stumble past one another in the crowded halls of Time. A cycle well-worn.

What songs are sung for a soul who seeks?
Who dances when the moon’s teat drips with longing?

There is nothing poetic about falling in love; it is starkest reality and basest need exposed. Utterly, it spends us even as we bleed. To love is to choose to be raw. Open.

Here with you, I walk blindly into an ancient light that conceals nothing, a light that wholly reveals from the inside. And suddenly, it is me sitting in front of another, being seen. We have shape-shifted into all our Unexpecteds. What there is, though, is light; a light that changes everything.

Look up, my soul whispers.
Here I am, my sweet.
Look up into Love.
Walk into the light.

I see you.