I lie on the grass and tell you, over the phone
How the sunlight warms my skin into smooth honey
The low drone of insect and airplane
Lazy sound of a summer day
Scent of warmed earth and green as I shade my eyes
The sun does not make me drip, sweet and liquid
Any more than you do

I want to talk to you aimlessly
Like I would on a warm afternoon
Lying back looking up at the sky
Through the mulberry tree in my yard

Artless and unselfconscious
Chewing on the white end of grass coaxed slowly from the blade
Lazy observations in a distracted tone
Scent of sun and sweat

after Atalanta Undigested* - http://hellopoetry.com/-atalanta-undigested/

Phyllotaxis in bunches and bracts
Raisins and almonds
Twice baked
Scattered through crisp loaf

Do you want me to love you?
Why do you want me to love you?

Isn't it enough I was willing to overturn my life for you once?
Isn't it enough I bore your scorn, undeserved?
Isn't it enough I cried for a year over you?
That I spent hours ranting at you and reviling you in my head?

And yet you've come back, after a fashion, turning my world on it's head yet again.
"What I want is the opportunity for ME to love YOU."

The show of looking in my eyes to see how they are different now
An excuse for eye contact, because you know it will draw me in

You cast lures for me
I know this
Almost a stealth campaign
First curiosity
Now covetousness

You have so much already
Why must you collect me, as well?

Cat sleeps innocent in my lap
His paws outstretched
Possessive

I shiver when your finger moves down my spine

I did not know your eyes were blue
Small suns ring your pupils
perihelion

As you come closer
You become significant
light blurs my vision

Polarizing sun
Perpendicular conscience
Horizontal will
~~~
Eyes wide
Ingenue again
You make my toes curl
~~~
Apollo is come
Dionysus cuts loose
Cassandra moans

Eurydike at his feet
Turns her back on Orpheus and opens a can of dog food for Cerberus
Handmaiden to a god of a dark place
Tending the fires

I don't have a playbook for this love.

In every other relationship I have or had, there is a decoding:
•  If he does this, it means...
•  When this situation happens, the correct response is...
•  When he says this, it indicates...

There are timetables and destinations
stages that must occur in sequence
things that have to happen before certain conversations can be had
milestones
goals

And here I am

I have no expectations
I have no game plan
There is no strategy
I am

I love

We sat on the floor of a quiet corridor in a mall
Listening to a tango
He translated the lyrics for me
Disillusioned, heartbreaking Spanish into English
Searching for the right words

My own heart broken open, though I did not know it at the time

Dismay
I wanted sweetness, comfort and intimacy
To be soothed and eased
To be held and cossetted
To be your little one
Your pet
Safe again and cherished

Cast down
Deflated
Punished
Degraded
Hopeless
Did you intend that darkness for me?

You have the ability to do me deep hurt
In your offhand positioning
The taste of future abuses
Not even physical force or pain
Twist of your words
Barbed wires you fashion just for me
A series of small cuts
That burn and seep

I felt your power over me
Is that safety?

I contemplated rebellion
I thought about being a brat.
Acting out disappointment and displeasure
Instead, I came to heel
Literally

Ending and beginning with the intimacy of your foot pressing my cheek into cold tiles and the prospect of further violations.

You just can't point a finger at a single instance and say it defines all instances.

This stash bag thing we label love?
It doesn't fit the bag.
And there is no one bag that can hold it.

I stopped believing in the myth of 1 true love.
I just do it and don't much count the cost.

I've crossed oceans, continents, and countries for love most of my life.
I've given it my time, my money, my thought, my emotions, my body - all of me.

For all of you.

When I tell You "*******" - I'm offering everything that I am.

Sometimes in flippant defiance.
Sometimes in submission.
Sometimes in love and appreciation.
Adoringly, exasperatedly, imploringly.

Body, soul, mind, heart, inclusive

******* very much.
It's my kind of declaration.

Naaah.

While aesthetically pleasing, those idealized taut-loined bodies don't really do it for me.

Curves and creases, his imperfections and mine together.
Marks of experience, passion, loss, and learning.

The fragility of skin that is speckled and less elastic
No less loved

Younger men, much younger, wash up against me.
Sometimes desperation, sometimes belt notching.
It's not a matter of age or experience or skill.

It's the unearned arrogance and presumption that puts me off
And it has nothing to do with chronological age, either.

I don't want to be with a tally **' of any sort. And it's not about what he can buy with money. Thoughtful generosity is quite another thing, though.

I want...I want...someone who's been hurt, who's experienced loss and reeled under it, lived through it and who has survived and thrived.
Who is both softer and harder for it. Who has compassion for and expectations of me. Who can be harsh and tender with me.

And me no less for him.

//
What is physical attractiveness, anyway?
It's not conventional, plastic perfection. You cling to that fallacy, you lose.
Sometimes, I am toppled into vulnerability by the shape of his mouth, the feel of his cheek when I touch, the way light or emotion moves in his eyes, his voice when he is on the phone for work, the way hair lies on his arm, how he is in conversation with a child or pet, the strength of his legs, personal scent, the unguarded expression caught. The way he hums.

An unexpected sweetness that moves me.

Grace

"Like a tornado through a trailer park,"

That's how he described his emotions when he told me he loved me, the man who tapped the mother lode of sarcasm.
Pragmatic, harsh, carnal, brutal in his analyses and honesty.
Lyrical and tender.
A man of unflinching integrity.

Something still goes zing when I see photos of him.

~~
What the hell is this
Why am I missing you now?
We're words on the screen

But I do miss you.
Biting words, intensity
Sometimes my toes curl

I get that feeling
High up in my chest and low
Down in my *****

Do you feel me holding you, protective?

You're part of my sphere of influence, mine to care for, to feel for.
It doesn't stop when you **** me off, when I'm impatient or uncomfortable.

When my heart expands to include you...and yours.

Hacked
Every hook
Every cue
Every one of my references and internal pantheon
He's wired into it.

How did that happen?
He's a stranger
I didn't even know he existed two weeks ago

And yet...
He gets it so right every time.
~~
self referential
I like it when he writes of me. To me.
That curly feeling.
His revelations, and the mirror held up.

Tribute, affection, the wry smile of a stranger.
The slightly bonkers obsession and fascination.
Glimpses of a convoluted mind.
~~
Rib Ice
Standing on thin ice
Peacoat open, arms wide
I step into that hug

Burned by warm skin and hard ribs
Even more by his kiss

He likes to hear me moan
~~
Whose mindfuck now?

Are my actions consistent with my words?
Am I as I say I am?
Do I mean what I say, or am I playing you?
How's your ******* detector?

cards on the table time
abdicate or defecate
ante up
~~
headlong

He leads me on a scavenger hunt, insinuating, enticing, pulling me into dark corners to kiss me and probe me intimately, until we're off to cross the next threshold in this trip...

I have no idea how I got here. Turned round, disoriented, down the rabbit hole.
~~
Deep Purple

On the way out
Curious discoveries

Door handle sticky
Musk in the air

Who's that knocking at my back door?
~~
Goddess, lit**

I like this intimate touch I have on your mind and emotions. It makes me feel powerful and protective of you. And pulls me closer in.

When you say I am a goddess, your goddess, I suspend disbelief and nod in acknowledgment and agreement. Yes, of course. In those times, I know I am powerful, wise, feminine, and mysterious, And that you are before me, kneeling, clasping my legs, leaning on me, head against hip and belly, worshipful.

And sometimes, you clasp my wrist as I'm turning to go and pull me back, quietly certain and not to be resisted. Inevitable. And then what? Kisses? Your hand on my breast bone? Gently steadied to meet your gaze, interminably and for no time at all?

I begin to believe you won't vanish.

A kiss on the top of your head.

I think about the colour of your eyes, the colour of your skin, the shape of your mouth when it smiles, the curve of your cheeks, and the mischief when you look at me out of the side of your eyes.

A kiss on the forehead.

I contemplate your neck and shoulders. How your ears are shaped. How lovely your collarbones and shoulder blades are. The fragility, grace and strength there.

A kiss at the top of your ribs.

The roundness of belly, ******* and bottom. The curve of your back and hips and the shape of your thighs.

A kiss on the tummy.

The lushness of you under my palm. How can your ***** be described as anything other than pink and sweet, and the way your hips rise when I touch you, or tongue you - endearing? Demanding and vulnerable at the same time.

The ticklish place behind knees. I think of your legs: Calves arched, feet flexed, and silly toes spread wide.

A kiss on the top of your foot.

Unknowingly marked, the bruises still float under my skin a week later
His gloating messages raise further stigmata

Hush, he says.
Be still. Your voice echoes too loudly.

I wonder how he can ask me to shut the **** up
When my voice is one of the truest, most honest things about me.

"If you love me, and if you're truly worthy , you will.
Your voice, it is too loud. Too harsh. Too brash. You assume too much.
You expose too much of yourself.

Too much of me."

I listen to the silence you leave me in and learn things.

I learn that I have been passive and submissive for a very long time. That sometimes I hang back when others blaze in with passion and conviction, and dither on the outskirts, tentative and uncertain.

Or when someone else would have exited, slamming the door behind her with emphatic drama, I linger, hoping things will get better, not able to see they are as bad as they are.

I become furious about old trespasses...in retrospect, still wondering, years later, just when and where the lines were crossed.

I worry that I bring out the ****** in men. Because I seem inevitably to do that for so many of them. A reflective surface for weaker resolves.

Old hurts float to the surface these days, leaving something else behind.

i.can't.stop.telling.you.things.
I.don't.want.to.stop.

I hurl the things that trickle through my mind, heaping them up on flea market tables for you to sort through.

Something catches your eye, you carefully work through the pile to unearth your find. Wipe some dust off it, turn it this way and that, until you set it down apart from the rest.

"This one suits Me. I'll take it."

in silence
a smile blooms
heart shoots skywards

magnesium bright
alterimage behind closed eyes
of how it would be
with you

intuitive
the shuddering breath
the uneasy familiarity and deja vu
the first time we meet
~~
unexpected
in silence
a smile blooms
heart shoots skywards

Swallow's yearning soars
Articulated in flight
Of sweeping French curves

Cast back two years ago
Unknit by careless inattention  
Raveled sleeve

his fingers on me
soft caress on thin petals
scent of *** rises
~~
curl in belly
explicit words invite touch
curl of toes
~~
touch of tongue at hip
strong tender plane of pelvis
gasp, grasp, ****** and arch

They come to me for a kick start, a quick start, for a broken heart, or one that's stopped beating.
They come for spice, for ***, for connection, for healing.
They come to be seen, to be accepted with open arms, open mouth, open heart, and open *****.
They come to be renewed, rejuvenated, revived, resuscitated, reminded of what it is to love, and to be wanted.
And then they go.

Who heals the healer?

Ooh, the sweetness that is hidden
Under the pocket that holds the pen protectors
And the baggy jeans of the shambling man.

The unsociable quiet one,
Who unexpectedly turns out to be
A ***** tom, a happy bedfellow,

Cerebral and awkward,
Lovely sensuality,
Hidden treasure,
A complete surprise.

When I see him,
I want to rub against him and purr and tease.
Want him to scoop me up as if I were a fluffy white angora cat,
And pet me.

Biscuit boy
Makes me want to
Melt all over him
like butter