awakenings

Prop 102 would amend the Arizona Constitution to say "only a union between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state". This issue is on the ballot for November 4th, even though Arizona residents voted on, and rejected, this issue just two short years ago.

This time around, the “Yes On 102” campaign has a huge budget to spread their message. Their billboards, signs, and radio/television ads are everywhere right now. It’s easy to let that make us feel invisible, marginalized, hopeless….but now, more than ever; we cannot afford to let that happen.

Consider this a call to action! We want to counter those images and messages of divisiveness, exclusion and prejudice with images of inclusion, equality and acceptance.

If you live in Arizona take a picture of you in front of your “No on 102’ lawn sign, print a sign for your car window and take a picture of that, or stand in front of one of the “Yes” signs holding your own handmade sign that shows your support of equality and your desire to defeat this proposition. Kiss, hug, hold hands, flash a big peace sign…whatever you’re inspired to do.*

If you live elsewhere in the country, but want to show your support, make a sign of your own celebrating acceptance, equality, love.  Involve your children, neighbors – heck, get your pets in the mix too – just make sure to write “No On 102” somewhere on the sign!

Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

To that we add, never underestimate the power of a simple photograph. Our pictures, taken from the heart, often speak louder than our voices ever could. Collectively we believe these images will carry our message of equality forward and outward – spreading a wave of positive energy that will help us defeat this proposition once and for all.

*Just keep it legal folks – nothing obscene or vulgar, and definitely nothing against the law – no graffiti or defacement, keep it positive!

Please blog about us, link to us, send our information to your friends and family.  Consider making a sign or taking a pic and uploading it to our flickr group or email it to noon102@gmail.com.  Add us as your friend on Myspace (and make us your top friend until the election) or join our group on facebook. Check out our ‘Get Involved’ page for more ways to help, and make a donation to help us fight against this proposition.  Every little bit helps.

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I shared this video and the lyrics to this Missy Higgins song once before. Since the beginning of my awakenings this song has spoken directly to my experience on every possible level, and this new video makes my connection to the song even more poignant – especially considering my post from last night.

There’s an ache that never leaves me, the tears spill over now without warning. Driving down the freeway, lying between cool white sheets in bed at night, standing at the sink staring into space while scrubbing dried oatmeal off of abandoned breakfast dishes… the mindlessness of the activity allows the vortex of my memories to begin that perilous spin. I imagine that if tears could carve a path, there would be well worn furrows down my cheeks by now; rivers and streams and tributaries born of loss and regret. I cannot stop thinking of what was and what can never be again, not because I wish to go backwards, but because I must grieve for what had to be lost along the way.

In the past year I have begun the process of stepping fully into myself, of accepting who I am, of embracing myself and my truth. There was a tendency, in the beginning, to think that this negated all that came before. My recent journey has been all about understanding that my past – the woman that I was and the life that I led – was no less me. My life till that point was no less valid or authentic or right – it was just not the complete story. Who I am now does not eclipse who I used to be – this life no more legitimate than that one. The fact that this is so very right does not need to make all that came before wrong. I do not need to view my life with a harsh divide separating my before and my after. Indeed these are just different parts of the very same journey, MY journey.

It is clear to me that this part of my path is as much about looking back as it is about looking forward. I mourn deeply the loss of my past, my husband and best friend, my intact and happy family. I need to give myself permission to do this, and I need to learn to do it in a way that does not detract from moving forward into a future with my love, with our children, toward a level of independence and personal growth that has little to do with sexuality and everything to do with owning my experience and creating a fully authentic life.

Yes, I am sad right now. It is not a sadness that leads to the sort of dramatic breakdowns that have been all too frequent over the past year. It’s not about guilt or fear or denial or breathless sobbing and raging into the night. It is a quiet, deep, seemingly bottomless sadness. It is a sadness that lives in the memories of happier days, of the loss of the part of my heart that will always belong to him, of the disappearance of a planned future and a life mapped out together. It is realizing that the joy of beginning this life does not have the power to wipe out the grief of losing that life, and of knowing that there is nothing that can be done but let this sadness fall down on me, and cloak me in its shadows.

It is the sadness of acceptance, and I somehow think that it might be the hardest to bear.

What do you do with the pictures? What happens to eleven years of snapshots and cheesy portrait studio enlargements, wedding albums and vacation pictures? Horrid Walmart engagement photos that stand as a forever reminder of a very bad hair day, murky underwater snorkeling shots of unidentified fish in Hawaii, precious photos of the first moments of parenthood?

What do you do with the shriveled balloons he bought you on your first valentines day, the souvenirs from your trip to NYC in the spring of 1999, with the birthday cards filled with sappy handwritten notes? How do you split up a decades worth of personalized Christmas tree ornaments, carefully chosen during a holiday shopping trip each year – even the pets’ names carefully added in with permanent marker. Who gets the home videos – hours upon hours beginning with teary eyed ‘I do’s’ and extending through first breaths and birthday parties and wobbly steps and Christmas mornings?

Who keeps the locks of hair lovingly saved from the first hair cut? How can you divide the stick figure drawing of your family of four, proudly rendered at preschool in bright crayola marker? What about wedding rings engraved with words of forever and partially filled in baby books and anniversary gifts and ticket stubs and random shoeboxes full of 11 years worth of collected nostalgia?

When you are faced with separating two lives that have been wholly intertwined for so long you discover that you are surrounded by representations of that relationship, both concrete and symbolic. Your house is filled with a million symbols of the bonds, of the happy times when anything seemed possible, of the family you built and the history you shared and the plans you made.

When all is said and done, and it all comes down to the final weeks of living under the same roof, those mementos are all that remain of both dream and reality. Keepsakes of a life that no longer exists, they are both more priceless and more meaningless than you ever thought possible.

And the final question lingers…what on earth do you do with the memories?

sometimes, without warning, the enormity of what has been done crashes down on me so hard and fast that I am left without the ability to breathe.

Lets be real…I’ve got no business being in a relationship right now.

Not now, when I feel broken on so many levels, more fragile and uncertain than ever before. I am struggling to rebuild my life, to create myself anew in a world where nothing looks the same. As the debris of my former life settle around me I must salvage some sense of myself from the fragments that remain of what once was, working up the courage to lift my eyes from the wreckage and move forward into the unknown of what will be.

I’ve got numerous holes to patch – love, friendship, and pure kick-ass determination being the mortar and putty of choice. I’m trying to shore up the weak sections of my spirit and heart so they can hold up to the inevitable struggles yet to come. I’m even choosing to leave some of the holes and cracks as they are, because I have learned along the way that sometimes remaining exposed and vulnerable is the only way I will ever encounter the truest and strongest parts of myself, and the only way to be sure I recognize and accept the gifts the universe sends my way.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
~Leonard Cohen

But I’m not doing any of this alone. Of course there are the beautiful spirits who swim in and out of my life; acting as friend, life-jacket, spiritual guide, babysitter, cookie-baker, muse, lighthouse, therapist and butt-kicking drill sergent as they are needed and as they are able. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be. But for the past five months there has also one constant presence in my days, in my thoughts, and deep in my heart. There is her.

The last time I built a love relationship I was 21, a young, optimistic and incredibly naive young woman just out of college. It was hard enough then; it always a challenge to connect yourself to another, to negotiate the complexities of together-life you hope to create. But eleven years ago I knew just a small part of myself and understood even less. Hindsight allows me to see that joining yourself to another is infinitely easier when you have barely begun to plumb the depths of the woman you will one day become.

There has been more than a decade of love and loss, of growth and change since S. decided to build a life together, and one year since we began the process of untangling and dismantling that life. I have faced myself, acknowledged my deepest needs and done my share of shadow-dwelling. And now I am building a new relationship, all this behind me, and so much yet to come. I have spent a year wading through the muck and mire of gain and loss and exhilaration and heartache, facing daily the impact of what I have done, living with the relentless onslaught of my guilt, his anger, their confusion, trying to not just survive but to ultimately thrive on this journey into fully formed woman…this all makes for an entirely different level of challenge.

Building a relationship in this space, where nothing is certain, where everything – the life I left behind and the life I am trying hard to envision and manifest – is raw and vulnerable and so damn shaky, when I struggle to maintain my faith in even the smallest things…it sometimes feels impossibly difficult. Back then I held, as so many of us do in the beginnings, a beautifully naive view of promises and commitment and forever. I had a simple, unwavering faith that love would always be enough. There was no way to predict that things would change to the extent no amount of love could have ever been sufficient.

Now I struggle to reach inside and find enough trust to carry me through the moment and into the future. I have to continually remind myself to release my worries and fears, to be true to myself and my needs, to honor my spirit and path and to do the same for her. I have to learn not just the beauty of compromise but also the necessity of not compromising my true self in the process, nor expecting that of her- so that we can create something real and lasting and true. I have to do all this when sometimes getting through the day without breaking down into tears and panic and gasping for breath while doubled over on the bathroom floor requires more strength than I can muster…hell yeah, it’s hard.

I know, with absolute conviction, that this whirlwind that has caught me and spun me into beautiful oblivion for the past five months has kept me from doing the vital self work that should have been my sole domain. This arching, spiraling, expansive force has distracted me from the focus that should have been placed on my children, from finding some sort of peaceful and respectful closure for my relationship with S., from doing the work, equally monotonous and terrifying to me, that is necessary to push forward. All these things would have, in so many ways, been easier, clearer, faster, smoother had she not entered my life.

But she came, and she’s here and there’s no way around that. She eased her way into my life, and my heart, so quickly that I know – on a level that transcends all logic – that we’ve known and loved one another before. It was immediate and unquestionable, so fast, so deep, so profound that from the first moment she touched me I was forever changed, and what you do with a love like that that but let it take you where it will?

Early on we both voiced nearly identical feelings that there was no choice, but instead a shared sense of a force beyond ourselves, of the inevitability of our togetherness, of an ability to feel one another regardless of time, space or distance. Our connection is soul-deep, infinite and fiercely real, I’d no more chance losing her than I would risk losing myself into half-existence again.

We are different, she and I, incredibly so. I wonder how we can make those differences mesh into the life we want to create together. And, with the cynicism of a girl who has watched her choices lead to the disintegration of a family, I wonder IF we can. I wonder why on earth she would want to stick with me right now, when I spend so much of the time an utter and complete emotional wreck*. I want to be independent and strong and accomplished for her, and right now I feel anything but. I question how to find necessary balance so that I can juggle all that needs to be juggled, without short-changing her and our future together.

But there are times when lose my grasp on the basic faith in what is and instead allow myself fall into the trap of doubt and worry about what might be. I forget to focus on that intangible and inexplicable connection that flows between us, and want to attach myself to some sort of non-existent guarantee. I give myself mental permission to sink into questioning and worrying and stressing about logistics and ‘what-if-might-not-how-can-i-possibly-trust-this? – pure crazy-making thoughts. I magnify our differences and distort them – fun house mirror style – until I create imaginary expanses between us. And then my self-protective mechanisms kick in (those developed over a lifetime of keeping myself safe by keeping others at a distance) and I begin to pull away, to shut her out. Self protective yes, but also self-defeating, because distance between us is the last thing I ever want.

Our love has been easy from the start, but our relationship has had challenges and roadblocks and stresses that ago far beyond what most people deal with in their first year as a couple. There have been fights, and tears, and hurt feelings, intense discussions into the wee hours of the morning as we attempt to navigate through this incredible complex situation. We have had to work, and work hard at times, to remain on solid ground, and it has required a level of commitment and faith that I don’t imagine normally exist at this phase of most relationships. In this way, our challenges also become our strength.

Yes, some things would have been easier had I not randomly connected with her that night back in February; if I had been sensible and stuck with my plan of staying away from relationships, if it has been possible to talk myself out of the feelings, deny the connection and kept myself separate from her. Yes indeed, some things would have been easier, but some things would have been infinitely harder and some of would have been damn near impossible.

Bottom line, we don’t get to choose when love finds us, our only responsibility to the universe is to open our hearts to receive it and to do our utmost to honor it for the gift that it is. Even when the timing is all off, even if the challenges of life would seem to suggest that the wisest choice would be to go it alone, even when the work of the relationship pulls focus from other things that need attention.

Without promises or guarantees or commitments, I know that what is between us is precious and needs to be nurtured and cherished and received with gratitude. Yes, from the outside it’s probably pretty clear that I don’t belong in a relationship, but from the inside it’s perfectly clear that, right now, in this moment, I do belong with her. I wouldn’t change a thing.

________________________________________________________

*(true story, dear readers, not a word of exaggeration, I’m a wee bit of a mess)

Clearly, I’ve been a little neglectful in posting lately. As I look back at my archives from the past several months there is something even more obvious than an overall shortage of posts – since late December I have only written about one side of my life.

I wrote this, directly from my aching heart onto the computer screen, the night S. and I moved into separate rooms. In the months since I have not written a word about the remnants of the life I once lead. I haven’t been able to bring myself to talk to you about the reality of existing in this familiar yet foreign space. I have found it near impossible to find words for the balancing act required to straddle the distance between the places I came from and the places I am headed, especially knowing that some parts of me will always live in this crazy, mixed-up in-between.

I’ve not mentioned the pain, the loss, the anger and bitterness, the omnipresent weight of the guilt that will be my forever baggage. I’ve ignored the heart break, the loneliness, the tears (both shed and possibly more painful, unshed). I haven’t shared with you the breakdowns and the shutdowns and the ache of living with a vast chasm of pain and hurt between myself and the one I have loved for over a decade.

I’ve not talked about my husband, my girls, my home – the wanting to dive in and hold them tight and the desire to shut down, push them away and run, run, run – fast and fierce and far. I’ve neglected to mention my paralyzing fear, all the decisions that must be made, how my financial and logistical future seems tentative at best and perilous at worst. I haven’t once written about how I’ve spent the last several months sticking (nay, ramming) my head deep into the dry packed earth of my adopted desert home – hoping that if I ignore it all for long enough perhaps when I stand up again the storm will have passed me by and life will have returned to normal.

I have kept quiet about the fact that the knowledge of what I have done never, ever fully leaves me, that sometimes I can’t breathe with the weight of it squeezing my chest like a vice. I haven’t mentioned that in retrospect, the first part of this journey seems easy in comparison to the place I find myself now. I haven’t written that instead of feeling strong and confident and bold, I’ve been feeling fragile and brittle and confused beyond all belief. I certainly haven’t told you that I’m scared out of my fucking mind.

It’s been easier to write about the new, the euphoria, the rush of discovery and experience. Crushing, feeling, exploring, falling, blissing out on love. That’s the simple stuff. Even easier than that is not writing at all – staying in the surface of the moments and not daring to go any deeper the way writing demands. But I can’t keep doing that. As I mentioned before, the living of this and the writing of this are so hopelessly intertwined that I cannot possibly separate one from the other for long. If I don’t write, I don’t process and I certainly don’t move forward. I sit, I stagnate, I shrink into myself until I feel like a shell of the woman I know I have the power to become.

The time has come (past come, actually) to start moving again. My life demands movement, direction, forward motion – more than it ever has before. But I cannot move fully into the future until I deal fully with the past. I need to be honest, to own up to the harsh and the ugly and the terribly, terribly sad – and this is where I need to do it.

This blog is my therapy. My writing is my voice, my story, the truth of my journey. My fingers, my keyboard, my computer screen are my tools. And you, my lovely readers, are my wise council. For me, someone who has chronicled her life online for eight years now, all of these things are vital parts of the process.

But beyond all that, what it really comes down to is my heart. I can’t do what I need to do if my heart is on lockdown. I’ve got to bring it out of hiding, unwrap it and put it out there again. Not just for the good and wonderful and beautiful (because these past few months has been filled to overflowing with those things as well), but also for all the less than pretty things that I’d really rather not face. I need to step out of my safe little corner and into the light, sometimes soft and inviting, but often harsh and blinding. I need to tell you my stories, and need to know that you will hear me.

I need to write again. I’m starting now.

Poem

If you read awakenings with any regularity you know I often find expression for my emotions and experiences through poetry. I revel in the process and therapy of my ‘regular’ writing – of wielding words and digging deep and laying it all out in specific detail. There are times, however, when the structure and punctuation and grammar necessary for good, solid prose makes the words too distant, too removed, too separate to really connect with the heart of my experience. That’s when I turn to poetry.

In many ways, poetry is the truest expression of life experience for me – both writing my own, and reading the words of others. My favorites (Mary Oliver, Audre Lorde, Erica Jong, Rumi, Rilke), the passion and inspiration of spoken word and slam (Alix Olson, Andrea Gibson) and newly discovered gems along the way (so many finding their way to me through kindred spirit MLC).

Poetry lifts me, transports me, echoes my own experiences and takes me to places I’ve never been. I’ve said before that I could happily drown in a good poem, and that has never been more true than during this period of transition in my own life. I think that because these months have been so raw, so honest, so rooted in sex and sensuality and in the down and dirty of intense emotion – it is poetry that provides the greatest release. Poetry has the unique ability transcend my life and to ground me deep within my experience at the same time.

Tongue-tied Blue is one of my favorite bloggers, She writes, always, in poetry. I wonder sometimes when reading her words (words that take me to the most exquisite, sensual, erotic, succulent* places) if I met her in person would she speak in verse? Does she think in the same effortlessly luscious-free-flowing-stream-of-consciousness verse that spills from her fingers onto my computer screen? Her writing is so organic, so immediate, so stripped down to barest truth that as I read I’m right there with her – feeling, touching, experiencing, reacting, knowing – and it’s almost difficult for me to imagine that she exists in another form.

Today I visited her blog and found this:

i love the feeling of her
skin
how she does it, i don’t know
but her skin is
so very smooth and coolly
supple under my hands
endless caressing miles
i could gladly
i do gladly wander, marvel
across her sleek surfaces
the more i let myself worship there
the more i forgive myself
the years of holding this
the most passionate, truest sex mystery
at an uncomfortable distance
my relief and redemption
allowed yet still
in measured, serene, clean-shaved doses
and as to prove the paradox of all truths
and i struggle truly to find words
because this part is wordless
when i bring my full attention
to my face and
when i bring my face
between her thighs and
when i breathe in deeply
the earthy tang of her
the parts of my brain that kick in
are not the parts that bother with words
or with ideas of redemption
or with even identifying the self
instead it is purely sense and sensation
wet curls and silky flesh
hot and salty pressure rocking
deliberately and thoroughly
the tongue with it’s own agenda goes
time? fuck time
she’s moaningand here i am
with no guile, no pretense
sure and present
i know it in my knowing
being
all the way through
this is no theory
no opinion or speculation
no adopted facade to cover
the mad, confused scramble below
here, finally
i am

And I could attempt to explain what it felt like for me to read those words, and read them again, and again – maybe 15 times now – with shivers down my spine and a heart beating with the cadence of the words. I could attempt to explain how it feels to absorb of someone else but to connect so deeply within my own reality. I could attempt to go line by line and tell you why each one resonated with me. How the final words “here, finally i am” nestled themselves into my heart and roared from my lungs because they are my words, my thoughts, my feelings too. I won’t do any of that, because I couldn’t even come close to fully expressing what I want to express, and I won’t because if you’ve been reading this blog – really, really reading it – then you’ll already know.

Share some poetry with me, won’t you? Who are your favorite poets? What poems echo your own experience, allow you to dive within your own reality and explore yourself on a deep level? Do you write poetry? Share it with me here if you will, or email it to me (awakenings.blogsome-at-gmail.com).

*L – if you’re reading, yes…that word is for you…

“What are your fantasies”?

She asked me this recently, during a quiet moment together in bed. We fit so perfectly together that I tend to forget she hasn’t always been with me and doesn’t already know the answers to all the questions. My mind went blank, and I was surprised to find myself without a response to her query.

I pulled my eyes away from hers and looked down at our bodies, nestled together on my white sheets. My eyes ran across the smooth expanse of her back, her strong shoulders, the curve of her breasts, that perfectly formed space between her ribs and her hips. I lifted my gaze once again to her golden brown eyes, and as my hand traced a path along her arm I was in awe at the almost unreal softness of her skin. I laced my fingers with hers and was swept by a wave of deep contentment and a rush of exhilaration so interconnected that they felt like a single emotion.

This breathtaking sweetness and lightness of being – this is exactly what I wanted for so many years. It’s what I longed for, ached for, dreamed about, yearned to experience. Until recently I didn’t even let myself imagine that I could possibly live this, that it could ever be real. But it is real – aside from the births of my children, it is the most true and honest thing I have ever done.

Lying here like this with a woman – with this amazing, kind, soft, sweet, giving, wonderful woman (who somehow found me despite the fact that I wasn’t looking and was determined not to open myself to possibility) – this goes far beyond anything I could have imagined or dreamed or hoped for.

And so I found my answer,

“This. This is my fantasy.”

And I lay my head against her shoulder, closed my eyes and breathed in the utter perfection of moment.

Sometimes life just works out that way.

____________________________________________________

Apparently this one wanted to be a poem too:

you asked

you asked me for my fantasies
but how could I give you an answer
when
i look down your body
and mine
lying together
at the curve of your breast
and the sweet perfection of your skin
at the way your body curls
into mine
so I cannot tell where
one ends and the other begins
and it’s all curves and softness
and a tangle of limbs
atop a white down duvet
how could I think
of a daydream
when even the briefest touch
causes me to
lose myself
(and find myself)
every single time
and our connection
spirals across time
and space
and makes words unnecessary.
and even hurts and misunderstandings
just seem to swing us closer
and closer
to magic.
why would I spend time on
the imaginary
when even
the most ordinary
moments are
edged in brilliance
and sweetness and
beauty.

and of course that’s the answer
isn’t it?

you, my girl
this, my girl
us, my girl

it’s all fantasy
and it’s so very real.

sometimes life just works out that way.

one night
when you’re sitting at a bar
twirling your straw through the melting ice
in a really, really bad
grapefruit martini
(that you can’t believe you ordered
but force yourself to drink anyway
because eight dollars is too much
to waste)
and you’re lost in thought,

you look over your shoulder
and see that someone
has come to talk to you
and although you have never seen her
before earlier that same night
(when you noticed her across the room
with her friends
and then again later dancing)
when you look in her eyes
you get that nagging feeling
that maybe, just maybe
you’ve already met.

or if that sounds rather too cheesy
to be believed,
at the very least
you want to prolong the moment
and see where this might lead
so before you leave
you seek her out
and give her your number
(because she had asked earlier
and you didn’t want the opportunity
to pass you by)

and when she puts her arm around you
and leans in close
to be heard over the pounding dance music
you feel a shiver of something…
that you cannot yet name
but that you know you want to explore
(you will later recognize it as the
deep contentment that you always
feel when you are with her)

and then
a few days later,
with no call or text
you enter another bar on the other side of town
(on a first date with another girl, as a matter of fact)
and you see her right away
against the bar, laughing with her friends
and your heart skips a beat.
(because hearts are never afraid to embrace
the cliché and predictable
the way that their owners often are)

and you know that
even though it seems like incredibly poor form
to approach her while your date awaits
that you will have to make contact
before you leave
(because serendipity is a wonderful thing
and such coincidences should never be ignored)
and so you go to the bar
for a drink of water
and you stand right next to her
(with a heightened awareness of
proximity that should likely
have served as a warning
of what was to come)

and you find out that she has your number
correctly in her phone
except for one missing digit
making it utterly useless as a means of connection
and so you add a very, very important number 4
(perhaps the most important number 4 ever,
only time will tell)
and leave with a sense that
something important might just be brewing.

and thus begins
a whirlwind
a chaotic
eyes closed, mind open
heart opening, opening, opening
totally consuming
kind of whirlwind
(so consuming that you’re only just now
coming up for air now to write about it)
and you find that within mere weeks
you (who was so sure she wanted nothing
to do with relationships, or exclusivity, or anything
that remotely sounded like commitment)
have lost your desire
to make new connections,
or even to further ones already begun.

and you are in that giddy place
that infatuation place
that crushing, blushing, so-crazy-into-her place
that preoccupies your thoughts
and steals your breath from time to time.
(because your lungs are not afraid
to embrace cliché or predictable either)
and you spent hours learning about each other
(except she didn’t have to learn anything really,
about your body because she knew all there was to know
from the very first moment of contact
in a deeper, more profound way
than perhaps anyone ever has).

and there was a point when you knew
without a doubt,
that you were in trouble here
and that this girl was not going to fit
nicely and neatly into your plans
for uncommitted dating and emotional detachment.
(because although it totally messed with your intention
to play the field,
you realized quickly that you had no idea
how to casually date her)

maybe it was when she asked
which flowers were your favorite
so she could surprise you with them
on some random moment
or maybe it was the texts she sent
that made you smile in the middle
of your craziest days
or maybe it was the way her golden brown eyes
seem to be able to see right into your soul
so that you communicate
from across the room without saying
a single word.

it might have also been
the kisses that held a million promises
or the way you could fall into a deep sleep in her arms
escaping the wretched insomnia
that had tortured you for months
or the way her touch made your back arch
off the bed
it might have been the emotions that arose
unbidden, in spite of the fact that this
was not the best timing
(for either of you really,
logistics are truly a bitch)
and in spite of all your attempts to deny them
and even though you didn’t trust their
reality or validity.

and although
it made no sense
and it was way too fast
and you feel like someone changed
all the plans
when you weren’t paying attention
you choose the freefall anyway
(as if you really had any choice in the matter)
you stopped fighting the inevitable
(although both of you made an impressive effort)
you accepted the risk
and embraced the exhilaration
and you closed your eyes to the safe
and the slow
and the sensible

and even though you always
laughed condescendingly at people
who (just a month or so after meeting)
want to be together all the time
and who walk around making goo-goo eyes at one another
and who are generally sickeningly sweet
in their total absorption in one another
you find yourself becoming one of them
in spite of yourself.
and yeah, you know that this is all rather ridiculous
and cheesy as hell,
and maybe a little bit annoying even
(because lets be honest,
when it’s somebody else, it usually is)
and that (of course) this might just be
the thrill of early days
and the passion and intensity might just burn out
when the haze of infatuation
finally lifts
you know this, but you really don’t care
(or, at the very least,
you choose not to give it any real attention)

you choose to ignore it all
because falling
is such
an achingly lovely
feeling
(especially when you know
you have a soft place
to land)

This is what it was like for me, the first time.

the ocean

when I asked
what it was
like
to know a
woman
my dear one
replied
with infinite
wisdom,
“it is like
the ocean”
…..

and I
was
rolling and,
spinning and,
holding
the air
in my
lungs
so I would
not drown

eyes shut
but
mind open
under
and
over
and over
again

waves crashed
hard
and soft
on me.
and I
rode them
to
shore
floated
blissfully free
while tethered to
her.

clarity in
disorientation
the touch of
water
on my
skin
the feel of
heat
on her
breath
the sound of
desire
in
us
and all
around.

diving
and surfacing
above
and below
sounds and light
filtered
through want
and need
from far away
and from
right here

right.
here.

and right
now.

and then
she
touched me
there

there

right there

in that place
beneath the surface
and I gasped
and was
filled
with
rushing water
the power
of the current
taking me
places
I had
not yet been
but wanted
to stay.

I felt the
insatiable
pull of the
tides
gravity and rotation
legs
intertwined
hands
clasped
bodies
with no
spaces
in between.

I was
dizzy
because I
could not find
air
I tasted
salt
on her
skin
and I thought,
my soul
already
knows this
place

because
I am from
the
ocean.

I am
at home
in this
water
in this
sea
in the vast
emptiness
and fullness.
and softness
of these limbs
of this skin
of this moment

floating
weightless
but
falling
just
the
same.

And like the ocean
it was wise
and it was powerful
and it was beyond
my control
and it was strong
and it was gentle
and it was everything
and nothing.

It was
like
the
ocean.