impromptu art

The thoughts that we most want to desert us

are the very thoughts that spin, twist,

warp and presuppose judicial thought:

they are the pieces that wreck loose and

unnecessarily. Sense thrusts

where objection smears, where the endangered foreplay

of awkward moments courses over every

pore, every sharpened breath.

I want you more than lines can conceal

and my mind fails to leave this alone. There are few

reroutes, less than six detours to take

and I am left awash in the swell of wonder:

can you hear me?

But love is an afterthought, I think, it seems.

Spatial attraction rips through these cranial torrents

and I think I cannot speak simply

because simplicity escapes me. Simple is not always

easy.

Of course if you were easy:

I wouldn't want you this way.

Where the brainstorm trails, you wander after

and there is always room for your hand in mine,

or: there would be

if I knew how to tell you.

say: yes, yes- anything you want

I spent today in a whirling dervish of thoughts. Quite frankly, I don't know where it all came from. Could be the time of year, the time of the month, circumstance, the wearisome tread of holding back and in, or maybe it was simply my time to feel the feelings. The thoughts weren't unproductive... but I haven't gotten anywhere with them.

What I did do was finally speak to one of my best friends for the first time in far too long. I'd called her last night (after posting something on here that I haven't yet reread in a state of sobriety), thinking she'd be awake since she's clear across the country, but no luck. We connected today and I unloaded and she said: "Wow. I really should have had a cup of coffee before I called you back." I miss her so.

Then I talked to el sótano for an hour, which was also good. She Freudian slipped and said "when" instead of "if" which made me happy. Actually, wait, she said "is" instead of "would" which is sort of the same but not really at all.

I've been thinking about perspective. Obviously, we all have different ones- if we didn't, life would be cruel and boring. What I'm currently stuck on is how much my experiences have altered my perspective, and how I'm continually startled to realize that people don't see things the same way that I do. But of course they don't, because we have different feelings about the same experiences. So just because I don't see the value or possibility of a long-distance relationship doesn't mean that someone else shouldn't, either. I just don't think I could do that again. I've had enough (finally). Then again... you can't pick & choose who you fall for. But sometimes, I think I do.

Someone told me recently that I "do it right" because I tend to be involved with women that live a bit away from me. It's not totally intentional, but I do like to have my space. [Obviously, my next girlfriend will need to respect my space, regardless of where she lives in proximity to me. Wait: the catch is- she will need to have her own life and a sense of independence in order to fit into my life. Yes. That's the real truth.] The distance does allow me to protect my relationship from the semantics of my life, that being the fact that I'm a public school teacher and am out to my coworkers, but not verbally to my students. A handful of them usually figure it out, and I know there are rumors, and I know that some of my former students resolutely know that I'm gay, but I do have an easier time "hiding it" because my relationships tend to take place outside of my city. I don't particularly like this- it's something that complicates my life while it simplifies it. I don't like feeling like I have to lie about my sexual orientation to my students: what the fuck good is that teaching them, really? But I also don't have the desire to deal with the potential drama, bullshit, and discrimination that would almost definitely be driven at me if I were to be out, fully.

And yes, I realize this further complicates my Obscure Object-ing. Obviously, I know this. And yes, it's part of why I keep my mouth shut about that. Selfish as I may be, the last thing I want to do is complicate her life.

Here's what my obtuse reasoning is circled around: I'm goddamn tired of holding in these feelings for my Obscure Object. I realize that she is intelligent (one of the major things I like about her) and that, really, she must have an inkling to, at the very least, knowing I am attracted to her. In fact, she has to know that part. I basically told her, it just happened in a slightly skewed way. And wait, it happened twice. Three times, maybe? Yes. She should know that part; whether or not she's really hearing it is another story.

I don't know how to tell her that I beyond lust after her. Not that I would walk up to her and say, "I lust after you," because most of the time, I'm a little classier than that. I've never been skillful with talking about my feelings when I'm not sure if I'm walking into a safety zone or a potential minefield. The fact is, I am attracted to her on about sixteen different levels. If someone made me write down each of those sixteen ways, I think I could actually make it happen. Listen, levels of attractions are muy importante to a heart-gets-caught-in-my-head girl like me.

Typically, I am able to write about these things better than I can speak them. In this case, though, I'd rather say it. Every time I think about doing that, my heart nosedives into my stomach.

I would like to be able to sit down with her and say: "I am wildly attracted to you. Sixteen different levels, in fact. I think you are fucking amazing, and it's okay if you aren't reciprocating this; I just needed to tell you."

El sótano asked me today: "Do you just want to have a weekend of wild sex with her, or do you want more than that? A relationship? What? What is it you want?" and I couldn't really answer her because the truth is, at this point, the Obscure Object and I just need to fuck and get on with it-- whatever it is.


(...and I can't get a clear sense of it until our lips meet, tentative then not, just as they did in my Riesling-soaked dreams last night.)

Tonight:

All you need to do, now, is send this simple word: Yes.

And if you do that, I will be there in less than 10 minutes.

Shameless because I want you more than I can say, and it's edged into something I can only show. With my hands, my mouth-- my words are secondary, missiles for a steady war of desire. I can't help it. I've tried. I can't.

I want you, you you, want, want: You.

It could be slow. I could kiss you with such sweetness, I could strip your layers one by one, seep into your body and melt into you.

Or it could be fast. (I generally think this is how it would be because I have been holding this in for so long.) Furtive. Passionate. Purposeful. Goal-oriented, and the goal is to fuck you until you can't think, breathe, feel. & all you can see is us.

To fuck you would be simple. To make love to you-- something entirely different, and:

I would be happiest with either.

obscure_object unsent #2

To you:

Have you the slightest imagination as to how much I desire you? How badly I want to simply feel your mouth breaking against my own, how I want the crush of our forms, together, endless?

...how when your name is so much as mentioned in passing, or directly to me: my eyes (so I've been told) alight into sparkles and a smile breaks unconsciously over my face?

How I imagine you, still, somehow, just don't know.

And how I falter in wanting to let this loose into the space between us, directly into your ears, into everything and nothing all at once.

I want you. Terribly.

I thought you should know.

This is our earthquake

Today, you are on my bed. Your shirt is a river drowning my fingers. Your body is moving above me- unusual- and your breath is quick, your lips and tongue snug and searching with mine. I am splayed beneath you, urgent with my own desires.

I want you naked, I know this. I still do not know what remains to be discovered beneath these protective layers: I have seen glimpses, flashes of skin, suggestions, and implications. I have seen the desire trapped between my ribs, sparking from my eyes, masked in curious fear in your belabored glances. I have felt the tremors of touch- and it has never been enough.

I want to ravish you. I want you to come back for more. Again, again, again.

The words & images are so thick today. I can't concentrate. There are thirty-two other things I should be doing right now, but instead I am sitting at my desk, wrapped in visions of no one but you.

...can you hear me?

love was- entire excellently steep

I do my best writing in the car. The road palmed flat before me, windows down rushing in the brink of fall air, words and sounds fleeing from the speakers: maybe it's because I feel free, there, untamed and entirely capable of going wherever, however I want. I rarely do, except for that one time in Florida.

My mind produces more thought than what should be humanly possible. I prefer it over mental stagnancy, but when I can't morph the thoughts into written sense, the struggle overwhelms itself. Today, I was thinking in linear bursts.

Tonight, I had a head-on collision with my filing cabinet.

I was looking for artifacts to take to grad class tomorrow night (stages of my literacy history: I chose my first book- written in Grade One, my second book- written in Grade Seven, though my About-The-Author states/lies that this is actually my fifth book [I lied a lot as a kid; I apologized to my mom about this tonight and she said: "Finally"], and a paper from my senior year of English, where I scored a 3 for writing and 5 for format). I wasn't looking for anything else- I never consciously am- but my hands soon grew heavy with Love & Memories and The Weight of It All.

The Weight of It All is everything non-romantic in my past. Featured, tonight, was The Master Poet, or: one of the most influential people that's ever been in my life, Len Roberts. He passed in the spring of 2007, but not before I was able to workshop with him for a handful of months. It was pure chance, that opportunity, and I still am not sure how I lucked into it. It was there and then that I met G.C. and happened into a few whirlwinds that would eventually reroute my life in ways that, at the time, I didn't imagine possible. I tugged the red folder from my filing cabinet, and out spilled marked and unmarked poems, an envelope, and a few packets. I once wrote a poem titled "Most Days," and I can't remember why it is so named, but Len's comments are what struck me tonight. Three years ago, it wouldn't have made sense to me. Tonight, I understand what he meant by writing "*Rimbaud" in the margin, and "surreal" near the top. Rimbaud. Rimbaud! That's fucking crazy! Now that I've studied Rimbaud, along with Baudelaire, I'm a little shocked/stoked that Len scrawled that very name in the margin of my poem.

Not fifteen minutes later, I found a box of school supplies from my first year of teaching. Sitting on top was a bright orange folder with a Dodge Poetry Festival, 2006 label on it. I have no recollection of receiving this folder; I went to the 2008 festival and have my red folder, but I wasn't at the 2006. I have no idea where I got the folder from, but: I opened it tonight, and the first handout on the right hand side of the folder is of Len Roberts, poems and bio. I had no idea (did I? I can't remember, now) that he read at Dodge that year, or ever. When I went to Dodge last fall, Len was heavy on my mind. I accredited to the simplistic connection of poetry-poet, but apparently the depth of thought runs deeper.

I also happened upon some Love & Memories tonight, and I felt nothing. I thought about removing the rubber band from the stack of France correspondence, but decided I didn't feel like rehashing all of that. I did read a piece of notebook paper littered with red pen that remarked on my traveling to see her, and how I meant "so very much" to her, and that she wasn't going to get mushy in the note; she would save that for the weekend. I don't know when it's from, but I'm thinking the winter of 2007, pre-2008, pre-first significant break-up. It doesn't matter. I read it and put it away.

I don't regret any of it, for the record.
It's become a part of what's happened in my life.
It just is.
Perhaps it just was.
I don't want love like that.

The Obscure Object jolted me out of... something... this weekend. She with the words- I love when it comes out of nowhere. I love when she comes out of nowhere (she always has). I love the taste of chance and happenstance and possibility. I very much like the idea of her finally starting to not just listen, but hear.

this may be interesting only to me

I just hit a new level of letting go: I realized that I don't want her- in any capacity.

I don't even yearn for one last demon-dusted sexual encounter. And I always, always craved sex with her. I can understand, now, that one of the reasons I craved it so much with her was because it was so infrequent. I was absolutely, 100%, wildly attracted to her (and this was a feature in my problem in letting go of her, post break-up). Would I still be, if she were to cross my path now or in the future? I imagine so. Sexual attraction goes a long way for me. Whether or not I want to act on it is a different story.

Truthfully, I haven't "wanted" her for months. That stopped somewhere at the end of spring, and I was filled with a sense of relief in no longer wanting her back as my girlfriend. Once I began to allow myself to see all that had actually gone on in our relationship- once I recognized and labeled my hurt- once I allowed myself to realize that she is surely not the only woman that will ever want me in any capacity- it got easier. There was a shift that ebbed within me throughout the summer: and this summer, it was made entirely of healing, experience, and forward movement. I wouldn't trade a moment of it.

She is gone from my life, and has been been since May. While she still merges into my dreams on occasion, my waking thoughts are focused on other things, other people, other curiosities. I no longer care what she's doing, or who she's doing it with (and I haven't cared about those things for a while). I'm healthier, so much happier, and confident.

The letting go: it has always been difficult for me. I just went through it over the last two weeks with C. It was hard to walk away from that for the simple fact that I knew she wanted me. It's an undeniably good feeling to know that someone likes you. But I wasn't there- and that wasn't fair to either one of us.

With Great Lakes, I never felt safe. I only ever felt wanted in her stretches of needy-mania (typically the pre-self-destructive stages, not the stages of solitude and every other breed of mania that threaded through her) and in the rare sexual encounter. We never had solid ground, and we never found ourselves on the same page. I think, in some ways, the unsteady ride is what kept me hanging on- I wanted to believe it could, and would, get better, and I wanted to be there to see it happen. I always saw so much potential for us.

But potential-- that isn't anything to build a life off of. The here & now is infinitely more important. This isn't to say I don't believe that things can't get better in relationships, whether romantic or otherwise. The measure of betterness comes with the terrain that these "things" are built upon. No one should ever spend so much time being unhappy, uncertain, full of love but with nowhere to direct it.

And the truth is, I cannot fathom driving myself open-eyed into another long-distance relationship. So much of the time that made up my last 3-years-long relationship was spent apart from one another. Had we been closer together, I imagine we would have self-combusted much earlier than we did. Or maybe things would have been different (I doubt that). But I know now that when I enter my next relationship, I want a stronger sense of normalcy, and a much shorter commute to see one another.

Other than that, I don't know what I want. I think that's become fairly obvious over the last month or so. I know what I don't want, and in my case, I think that's more important than its counterpart. Do I want someone who gives as much as I do? Absolutely. Do I want mutually unbridled attraction and adoration? For sure. I want a safe body to lean upon, to rouse from sleep, to nudge into the morning. I want a brain as fueled as, if not more than, mine. I want compassion and respect and laughter and understanding and release and reprieve and excitement and learning and the desire/action to move forward-- together. I want more.

And do I want my Obscure Object? Yes, without a single doubt, I do.

these things

i want you here, to rest between my words
and to arch between my hands.
the weary path of secret signals
threads around the spaces between us.
and there is nothing within
save for passing thought
and the heady complexity
of trespassed desire.

so simple, so finite,
so thorough and thick.
i do not wish to coat this desire
with lies and presupposed suggestion.
i think you should know
this want? this yen?
this tireless repeat of your skin
flushed with mine, wrapped beneath
the lifting air of sunset, sunrise,
midday, evening: everywhere?

you and i:
maybe we should.

To The Ends

You may not understand this, the way my verbs

stick to nouns and decapitate adjectives

as they hurtle themselves up from my throat.

This glitch in communication-

the part where I couldn’t force

ripples of truth from my depths of discontent. Because

I never told you this, and it seems I never will, I can say it

now. Love doesn’t cover those years

but I don’t know what does. I wanted

your body. I wanted you to be

whole.

I wanted to grasp your demons and shatter them,

rip them limb from limb with the nakedness

of my fingers,

the same fingers that warmed the lengths

of your body, the ones that coursed you between

crashes of orgasms, the very fingers

that enclosed your hands

into my palms. And I never managed

to hold you tightly enough. Strapped to me like a bungee cord

and my heart suffered the lurch and drag

of your eclipsed mind from my waning strength, your charred

sense of truth from my hopes

for (our) balance. The stillness of destruction

would not let me breathe.

for later:

"She was certainly the spark for all I've done."

-Iron & Wine

This picture

Sketch the walls first:

the slates of color washed about strips of blank

canvas, unburdened by what may lie in this past

and shielded from what may yet come.

My heart is not like that. It never

has been.

But the walls streamline the scatter of my life

within these boundaries- the flourish of self

locked down by expectations and qualifications.

It doesn't ever matter

because my mind flails like a squid thrown from home.

Space divided by time and conflict; sometimes

I'm glad you're not here.

this is the way I want it:

Today, the scene is a kitchen.

Obviously, there's a level of irony here (where I've come from / where I'm going, if you will-- but also you: you in the wintry kitchen). There's also, you should know, a certain level of unbridled passion hanging over and fueling through this scene.

We are there, alone. Whoever was with us has left. It's dark, late, the season has changed and the warmth around us is a combination of words unspoken and kitchen mechanics.

I don't know who shifts, I don't know which one of us turns.

All I see is the blurred composition of our heads bending into one. Mouths locked, lips intertwined. My hands running the length of your back over and over again; your arms encircling my body with a sear of tentative fire.

It is so vivid today, I can nearly taste it. You. I can nearly taste you.