I want to make love to you one
more time, lying lavishly on those old blue satin sheets.
Silky smooth, like cheeks of angels; dangling our toes off
the end of the bed in sweat
drenched ecstasy.
Just once more, I want to
amble down the grocery store aisles, trying to decide what to make for dinner.
You, looking at the hamburger helper boxes, me, trying to decide between Thai and Italian, the kids, screaming, "Hot dogs, hot dogs."
I can't change time, but baby,
If I could, when the other woman came to me with her
snake dance, I would laugh and turn my back and run home to you.

You loved me like a leaf blowing
in the breeze, you left me and
I started falling.

You never rooted our love,
you never hydrated the roots,
you never planned a plot to secure
our future.

Every time I built a *** you broke it,
every time I built a foundation you
damaged it, every time I fed the soil
you starved it, every time I tried to
consul you you buried it.

Upon the ruins of us you left
love to freeze and die.

Like winters deepest touch
you turned love into ice.

You are a cold memory
of what we could have been
now you're a gray storm,
dangerous and frozen.

©️ 2023 By Amanda Shelton

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

By Jalaluddin Rumi

Humans are by our natures
nurturers, we thrive when
giving, we take in stray animals
raise and love them like our own
children, if they by their natures
eat our sofa, crap on our carpet
we readily with charity forgive
them, clean up their mess and go on.

Is it not sad that we cannot always
extend or receive that same charity
of tolerance to or from the humans
in our lives?

How long has it been since
I had ***, I mean of course
with another person?
You know two consenting
warm bodies embracing,
deep wet kisses, real human
longing, affection rendered.
Forever it seems, relegated
now to indistinct night dreams
and long life ago memories
viewed as if projected like
pale untouchable shadows
on an indistinct grey wall.
There, but not there.

What is love and life but
lingering vague whispers
in a night of dwindling light.
Lasting only as long as our
conscious memories allow.