I look at you
A ghost without boundaries
My hands reaching out
To grasp your heart
Nothing there to stop me

I look at you
Ephemeral
And ethereal
I wonder when you’ll see
The way I view you
An abstract concept
Far away
Never to be found
Never to be touched
Yet an object of limerence
An object of love
That is not to be realized

Saudade
Object of obsession
You are nothing more than that
You are much more than that

A ghost without boundaries
Dead yet alive in my mind
Fitting in the puzzle pieces
As I fit the parts of my heart
Last time it fell for you

I don't think I spend too much,
But then I spill out my shoe
Collection, an addiction sorted by hue.
Cupboards flung open to reveal the gradient of such
And don't get me started on bags and the clutch!

Rivers of life run deep,
But then I look at the contents of my journals;
The "now and not yet" cries reveal how hormonal
Am I. Dim focus on the eternal creeps
To cover more of the heart, I try to keep.

New year near and nearer;
But a return to stillness yearns.
When we hide, these addictions burn,
Igniting guilt, shame and all,
Where are you simplicity? Is this the fall?

An honorable human relationship — that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation.

It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity.

It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us.

from  On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978

Who are you? Self awareness is very tricky.
You’re very complicated, we all are,
people are the most complicated things
we encounter in our everyday lives.

Now imagine two complicated people together.
We manage this complexity by limiting each other,
with social contracts, to limit usurious behaviours.
If we abide by the contracts things are simplified.

Part of that is being polite - you don’t want a complex,
bank teller, dentist or policeman - our society runs
on simple transactions - perhaps 10 for each of us daily.

The wild card is emotion - that’s why *** is so tricky.
Do you want to depend on an emotional doctor
or be stopped by a really emotional policeman?
I think not.