seduction
made of sparing words
and lost time
Tag: Relationships
my imperfections i place in your hands…
my imperfections i place in your hands.
with you, i can’t idealize myself –
for what i am, i open up to you,
and strip away far more than simple clothes
connection & acceptance are my hope;
to feel you’ve brought your whole life here with you,
and that you may, on knowing who i am,
move off, in finding me not to your taste
but here, withal that may be put at risk
i ask your imperfections show, as well
To share is human:
Filling Station
Once
A woman and her husband
Stopped at this place
She, eight months with child
He, thinking about walking out
And the drive had been a tense one
Old wounds reopened
Fresh hurts on display
And an old couple was there
At the same time
Laughing while they pumped gas
They asked her when the baby was due
She said, “One month.”
The old man asked her husband
“Are you excited?”
“Nervous,” was the reply
“Don’t be. Just remember:
Loving someone
Who loves you back
Is the greatest thing in the world.
And your child
Will love you back.”
Forty-eight years later
The woman is no longer young
She stands at this abandoned place
Her young granddaughter in tow.
“What is this place?” the little girl asks
This place?
This is where your grandaddy and I
Decided to stay in love
(“Filling Station” – 8-15-2014)
To share is human:
Falling, In Love
[Originally posted May, 2018. 30 days of prose, day 10. – Owen]
Falling in love is like stepping off of a flying airplane; them loving you back would be the parachute. But that parachute doesn’t always open.
Splat.
Love in relationships always comes with risk. We can’t know what others are really thinking, and we can’t know how years or circumstances might change them. But we step out anyway.
And sometimes, we crash.
Hearts, however, are usually stronger than bodies, kind of like the flight recorder on a airplane.* They are usually ready shortly for service on another flight. The decision to step off a plane again, though, gets much harder.
Before I met my wife, I had lots and lots of practice at falling in love. Many of these were more like falling of a curb than an airplane: short fall, easy landing, right back up, no problem. But others were harder: awkward falls off of bicycles, and diving boards, and even a roof or two.
Finally, I stepped off a plane for real, and man did it feel good. Scenery rushing by, blue skies, green pastures, and another person there with me. It was such a rush.
Then I hit ground, hard, in a fenced off area called “divorce”. As I lay there, wounded, I saw her (my ex) bounce immediately up and get on another plane.
One person’s crash is another person’s escape, I guess.
So why do we do it? Why do we try again?
I can’t answer for you, but I can answer for myself. I loved the feeling that came with stepping off of that airplane, and I wanted to feel it again. In addition, I wasn’t going to let one person stand in for any other person I might love for the rest of my life. For that next person might be my parachute, and I might be hers.
The other reason I had for trying again came from an observation I’d made, which was: planes can crash whether we ever get off them or not. Isolating myself hadn’t prevented crashes in the past, but it had prevented joy.
In the end, we love because we’re made to love, and because the choices of others do not determine who we are.
But it sure feels like they do those times we hit ground.
* I innocently asked my dad when I was a kid why they didn’t make planes out of the same material as flight recorders so that people would survive the crash. I got a long explanation on the aerodynamics of heavier metals.
To share is human:
By The Waters of Loneliness
It’s cold out here but worse inside.
And I have got no answers –
I hurt for you, my love, my pride,
But I have got no answers.
Still —
I wish I was a healer who
Could mend relationships, and do
A magic spell to patch our past
And you and I would soon outlast
The couples passing by, who’d see
Our open suitability
For long-time love, and long-held dreams –
That wouldn’t end in heartbreak.
But here its cold, the sun’s gone down,
And I have got no answers –
No questioner nearby is found,
And still I’ve got no answers.
Yet —
I wish I could bring back the days
And nights when you and I would say
That everything we’d ever need
Or want, our covenant and creed
We’d find in one another; where
The starlight meets the cool fresh air
Our love would last, and never die,
And wouldn’t end in heartache.
But cold and lonely flows the sea
The spray kicks up and covers me
And I have got no answers
(“By The Waters of Loneliness” – 12-4-2013)
To share is human:
Love Spasm The Third
When my ex left, our youngest was
But three years old – alas –
So I would take him daily to
A little pre-k class
The girl who worked there was so young
But seemed to like the way
I’d sit with him – and other kids –
Beginning every day
So, finally, I asked her out
And she said that she would
So I drove out to get her
When she said it would be good
And she came out to meet me
Well before I’d left my car;
And it struck me, so I asked her
Before I had gone too far
Exactly just how old she was
“Um, twenty” – her head hung —
She looked up, her eyes pleading
Asking if that was too young
“Oh, no, no – you’re age suits you”
That was all I thought to say
But I knew I wouldn’t go on
Any further in this way
So post-dinner, I told her
Gently, how much fun I had
And then I took her back home
To her mother and her dad
And said, “I will not lie to you:
I will not call again,
But if I may, I’d like to say
To you now, as a friend:
You’re beautiful and charming,
And if ages weren’t in play,
I’d probably want to call you
From the end of the driveway.”
But she was not placated
As we both felt something strike:
The pain of liking someone
Who it is
Just wrong
To like
To share is human:
Now, When I Remember You
To tell the story of a life Takes many pages, many words; To tell the story of a love Takes every bit as long The you I saw in summer fields Beneath an endless weightless sky The you I felt in tenderness The softness of your skin, a sigh For now, when I remember you There is a novel in my mind; The beauty of your memory Is always young, and brave, and kind There's beauty in the world, I know, But I thought I had lost it then: You walked into the room, and I Became the mindfulest of men But this - this was not me at all This was all you, and love; it was A type of wakeful dreaming where I did not want to wake, because Your magic was in everything. If ever a man loved, I did: I cherished every moment, and I lay awake at night and bid The minutes slow their very march. To lengthen time, our time, so much As possible; to see your eyes To stroke your hair, to softly touch Your skin beneath your summer dress. To love you there with all my heart; Your words of warning in my ears That love is short and lovers part. A life, my life, what is it now? It's just a cold and fading fire A soon forgotten flickering Of what was once raging desire And all for you, my long true love - Who taught me wonder in the night, Whose hand I took to cross the bridge Of leaving off and doing right The day is closing in, and I Put down my pen, and rest a while - For now, when I remember you I shiver once, and lastly Smile
(“Now, When I Remember You” – 6-25-2015)
To share is human:
a kind of imbalance
when it came to her, many options were open to me: none of which involved not caring on my part
To share is human:
intimate limits
while those memories fill her heart you may feel estranged just know that places you can't reach always are
