I.          Chronology

 

 

Late August, 1995.

 

Day one without my beloved.  Incessant speak, irrepressible longing.  Knowing not for what reason I am here.  What has anywhere else to offer?  She alone, my constant trouble.  She alone, my promise.  I dwell in the entirety of her presence, though even now being non-material.  To think, I yester-morn held you secure.  For nearly a week we both were complete.  But now separation sets in like a film intermission, during which the theater remains dark, and the seats on either side, empty.

 

 

25th Friday, August, 1995; 3:27 AM.

[Anticipating a sleepover with Alyssa.]

 

“I’ve seen my share of fair skin and hair, broken composure for stares, and chest bares.  But past dwindles fast, swindles cash, acts aghast; while true beauty is the composite compliment of simple, total complexity.”

 

How eagerly these eyes before have wandered.  Wandered down every curve and unexplored mystery reacting to expose itself.  I used to find such things attractive.  But with your introduction I have found the culmination of my years of searching, the very epitome of all I desire.  I am honestly and inexplicably in love with the most wonderful feature imaginable.  And only so through association.

True beauty is deeply intimate friendship.  It is total security and met needs.  It is every sacrifice I can ever make to serve her.  It is the literal chills my spine feels with her gentle touch.  It is the eye-narrowing grin when she speaks of our entirety and pronounces it great.  It is the thought of forever, and nevermore alone.  True love is finally mine, a fine argument for Christ’s supremacy.

 

 

5th Tuesday, September, 1995; 1:51 AM.

 

Severity you claim.  Intensity I meet you with.  Have I rescued you from some barely permissible undertone?  No more so than you have riddled me with joyful and lovely thoughts.  Your face to me is all beauty and worthwhile pursuit, captured in an instant.

 

 

5th Tuesday, September, 1995; 5:11 PM.

 

Traces of you appear, forge themselves into existence, in the unfamiliar reality of before we ever met.  I wonder in such a span if for even a second's time we once held each other’s attention, if for a moment we noticed each other,  our souls unconsciously recognizing our future together.  You manage in this present, somehow, to touch even the earliest scenes replayed.  I view myself apart from you as time, substance, even thought-life, belonging to another, unacquainted with his present self.  Who was I?  I know only that I was.  Who am I?  I know only that I am.  And as I am and will be, from this day forward, contains you, consists of you.

I could not fathom being without you.  You are integral in what I know to be.  You have affected so deeply and so immeasurably my totality that you have become essential to its completion.  Knowledge of you is necessary for my very breath.  For if creation held you not in its design, neither would I be held.

 

 

11th Monday, September, 1995; 2:39 AM.

 

I am troubled in these nights spent without you, not that they may last, but that you yourself might feel them as vividly as I.  This strain we feel as the remainders of our hearts lie so far apart, as welcome as it is, I do not wish on you.  Could I remove the need and leave with you only that transcendent and overwhelming peace, I surely would.

You are my miracle.  The thought of you urges tears without explanation.  You are my supreme blessing, the fulfillment of my predestination.  Continuing with you is a display of God’s grace, all in accordance with His provision and will.  To that pleasing and wonderful end, you meet my delicate balance of needs.  You stretch me, encourage me, challenge, support, and wait for me, all the while with humor, romance, and complete honesty.  In Christ, you are everything to me.  I love you to the very core of my heart, mind, and soul.

From conception we have been molded to each other.  How any two people could live such different lives, and yet become so genuinely kindred in total empathy and understanding, can be only through Christ’s leading.  How significantly you enhance what I already love—how the very first song your fingers ever played for me was already my favorite piece, is only a minute illustration of the pure and complete satisfaction I find in you.

 

 

Mid-September, 1995.

 

Should I at any moment run out of words, know that my gaze holds both past and future, and that I need look no further than your eyes to fully experience the wonder of now.

 

 

17th Sunday, September, 1995; 10:06 PM.

 

I lie here in a suspended moment of soul-sighing, burying the receiver into my face and chest.  I need to touch you.  I need to smother myself with your forehead and hair.  I suffocate without your breath in me.  You are my life, my purpose, my essence.  I need you.  I love you.  You are sustenance.  I am dying without you.

 

 

21st Thursday, September, 1995; 2:19 AM.

 

So many of my hopes are measured by Christmastide.  At this very moment, I can’t imagine another without you.  No, Christmas is a season of warmth, of intensely comforting heat and hearth, surrounded with snow and icicles, and stark skyline, open-air rides.  You are my warmth, my intensely comfortable heat.  So many know only the snow and icicles, they who season without love.

I was once so cold, until you softened me.  Now I breathe contrast.  I inhale the cool as fragrance; even it warms me in your presence.  You are as much a part of me as I am a part of you, as we are the whole of us.

You will come to cherish Christmas with my enthusiasm, as you also will contribute immeasurably to the romance of it all.  As I lose myself in the sentiment, I will unavoidably become immersed in you who share it with me.  You offer hopes I could not have tangibly grasped before.  I want you to experience with me every good and pleasant thing this future holds.  I love you more now than even a moment ago.

 

 

21st Thursday, September, 1995; 12:50 PM.

 

I have always known that I was looking for you.  Even so, I have not always acknowledged that it was known.  Was it taught to me from the outside in childhood learning?  Is it a Christian doctrine we often fail to apply?  Or is it something else, a God-given, innate sense of purpose and fulfillment we all have means to find, but can do so only by His leading?  I can never for sure know the answer.  But one thing I do know, and know it with unwavering resolve, is that His will holds you in it.  Only by His hand, and only by following His voice was I led to you.  And at what a perfect hour, with the story of my life so soon opening to its next chapter—yours as well.

 

 

25th Monday, September, 1995; 5:28 AM.

 

Activity and academy have parted us now for days.  The single voice I so long to hear cannot be called upon.  Treasure, I ache for your proximity!  I burn for you to take up residence once more in my immediacy, replace all these pale excuses for camaraderie who linger in my emptiness.  They at the height of their splendor are no substitute for my one and only love.  I am cast iron.  I cannot be swayed.

How have I so tolerated being without you even this long?  In a subdued sort of misery!  I loathe being without you.  I detest my surroundings for not containing you.  I pray you not ask again for my return until my God permits.  When He separates us, it is difficult enough to submit of my own accord.  Much more then at your expense!

 

 

29th Friday, September, 1995; 4:19 PM.

 

The thought of you alone is enough to experience a full spectrum of emotions.  How much more then to have you at hand!

 

 

7th Saturday, October, 1995; 4:13 AM.

 

Realism, after so long without you, and with so much longer still to come, is not a welcome thing.  Are you slipping?  It is not unparalleled.  I mirror every grievance with equal parts empathy and longing.  It is a constant struggle to not despair.  It is a constant anxiety that you may.  Are you settling into what together we thought to avoid?

I do not deny that your absence carries with it a morose consequence.  But at the prospect of being reunited, I am certain that all we experience apart from each other will be replaced again by perfect contentment when we may finally become one in every regard.  To become fully united to you will be my healing.  And tending you, nursing you, will be my life.

 

 

11th Wednesday, October, 1995; 3:34 AM.

 

How different is this, I wonder, from what I’ve left in the past?  How do either of us know beyond any doubt that one or both of us may not at some point change our perspective?  Perhaps it is nothing more than the honesty with which we approach the question.

I know that you are bound by ethical obligation as easily as you are swayed by emotion.  Such an obligation toward me, I can assure you, would not be unmet.  That we question our sincerity and faithfulness to each other shows that our concern lies not in our own happiness, but in that of the other’s.  My own fear is not that you are not the one, but that my leanings may so sway that there may never be one.  If I leave you, it is only that I am so predisposed that I will leave anyone, regardless of emotion, ethic, or charity.  It would not bother me in the least if not on your behalf.  To cause you any suffering whatsoever would grieve me to illness.  This fear will subside only once I have withstood the test of time, and my doubts and caution are vanquished.

And I lied just then, saying my disposition to leave would not bother me on my own account.  I have become so taken with you, in every possible way, that if what has grown backwards from the charitable to the ethical, then finally to the aesthetic, is not in fact true, then no human, in regards to love, can ever know truth.

 

 

16th Monday, October, 1995; 2:04 AM.

 

Have you any idea how smitten I am?  No potential lies elsewhere than I have so resolved.  So sound is my ebullience and fixed is its origin, that you, my love, are immovable in your position.  Never have I been so moved as to boast claims without caution, to involve another so intricately into the hidden course of what is to transpire.  You already have overtaken long forgotten obligations and relieved past substitutes of their posts.  Every aspect of every concern has been entrusted to you, remitted to your care.  How quickly you resume what was so long unattended, so that maintenance from the first should never be questioned, and assumption may suggest care always at your hands.

Know you not how irresistible you have become?  Through night-piercing smiles I hear myself midway into some improvisational sentiment.  I catch myself imagining scenery to sketch your familiar gestures into us.  I hear your laughter and feel your kicks as vividly as I see your eyes narrowing back into my pillow.  I kiss the air, and pull it to my chest, half expecting materialization from the sheer pressure.  I think not only of how you may belong to me, but of how anxious I am to belong to you.

 

 

24th Tuesday, October, 1995; 6:54 PM.

 

Every day without you settles in.  I’m scared again.  Think not that I ever would be relieved if you decided to leave what little room I give you.

 

 

24th Tuesday, October, 1995; 7:23 PM.

 

At your voice am I restored.  Nothing at this moment is more important than my return to you.

 

 

6th Monday, November, 1995; 2:47 AM.

 

You reside unaware of routine or its breech.  You reside so unmistakably elsewhere than our hopes.  You reside in your year-round string of lights on the very far side of the line.  I wait for you in obstacles and terrifying prospects for distraction.  I wait for you, the little green plant, to push through your screen of oppressions.  I wait to see if tragedy turns its eyes away and good fortune smiles.

I am once more faint for my love.  I am angry at those who darken your life as freely as they gave it.  I am jealous that anyone so unworthy have you so close at hand, while I want nothing more than to kiss the tears they cause.  You lose nothing of my opinion, but gain favor, growing more satisfying and delicate and beautiful with every passing mention.

I had not anticipated such an increasing fondness.  You are to me the whitest passionate bride on the wedding night, so anxious to uncover and to be uncovered.  You are the very moment virginity is offered as the ultimate gift for another to take.  You are the continuation of life.  You are the milk upon which a child feeds.  You are purpose and fulfillment, blessing and tribulation.  You are my world, my everything.  I can answer such desire only with the deepest parts of my core.  You are my fruit and I am yours.  I withhold no luxury from you.

 

 

13th Monday, November, 1995; 1:21 AM.

 

As if words were necessary.  But I will speak.  I will speak so that you know with what effort I intend to keep you.  I will speak so that you can be certain I want all of you—not merely the idealized portrait I see you as.  It is true, you offer in bodily form the focus of my every craving, my every desire.  It is true that every emotion is captive to such an appetite.  But my pleasure in you is so far beyond simple gratification in a physical capacity.  You are so wonderfully complex.  Your draw is your entirety.  It is the cunning and the charm, the humor and the empathy, the humility and determination.  You are the composite of parts I can only hope to glimpse.  You are the thoughts which introduced your voice, the existence which only now is given face.  You are the entity I was compellingly and keenly attuned to.

How can this be explained?  She is rather like the gift a relative sends.  We wait with excited expectation for it to arrive, and though we know very few details, it becomes a constant waking thought and takes on a very personal significance.  We treasure it long before it even arrives.  Then when it finally does, the packaging, however elaborate, is irrelevant.  We have already been preoccupied with what is inside, and we adore it simply because we adore who sent it.  In this case, the relative is God the Father, and the packaging is breathtakingly elaborate, but the contents of the package are the true gift, and their worth and beauty are beyond estimation.

To take the illustration further, it so happens that the gift requires a great deal of attention and care.  Should that make it any less precious?  No indeed, for the maintenance integrates the gift into all other areas of life.  It is a constant reminder that a gift has been given, which will remain priceless as long as it is tended to.  It is not a mere trophy to showcase.  A trophy lacks any practical purpose whatsoever, beyond perhaps stating that he who displays it is a slave to pride.  There can be no pride in receiving a perfect gift, for a perfect gift is one which we do not deserve.

 

 

20th Monday, November, 1995; 1:09 AM.

[Morning before Chris Isaak & Wallflowers.]

 

How has it been that you have not seen me at my worst?  Well, quite honestly, you put me right.  I refer now to our first outing (suddenly a revelation—our first public appearance together!  Oh, the significant firsts!), to the string of shops where my outlook altered your own.  My dear, it was as though you enhanced yourself, because my manner would have been melancholy had it not you as its aim.  I was able to encourage you only through the strength you first gave me.  What a fabulously rich relationship, to give and receive so mutually!

 

 

20th Monday, November, 1995; 2:03 AM.

 

I am not without a multi-thorned stem in my side.  Thorns protect what is dearest and precious, the delicate parts of blossoms and plant life.  I would enumerate to you the most painful of these, to give you in all fairness the chance to proceed no further with me.  For when I allow you to read these words, you must realize that we are very near the day when our bond in Christ will be fully consolidated.  I love you unselfishly, and I intend for you to have every available insight to approach this day well informed.  If anything is too reprehensible to overlook, better that you learn it now.  But I cannot be detailed without being vulgar, and what I am in the dark and in private is too inappropriate even for my writings, so let me say this much, and leave it with you to imagine the worst:  I am unenviable and flawed in all areas masculine.  Forgive me for saying it, but I am repulsive to myself.

 

 

30th Thursday, November, 1995; 12:15 AM.

 

At times I feel as though I can never be close enough to you.  We can grow toward it, work toward it with great anticipation, but I will never know everything.  And I can never fully express the bond from my side, so that you can experience how wonderfully golden I find you, how pleasing and breathtaking you are.  Could I reach through your belly and pull your heart into my own, it would not be enough.  A lifetime is barely enough to mark the surface of your depth.  They who compromise themselves, yielding to the physical regard, comprehend nothing of intimacy.  You are more than you can ever fathom.

 

 

2nd Saturday, December, 1995; 3:48 AM.

 

There are in this life only those fit to serve and those fit to be served.  Know that I consider you in every way the former.  But my dear, I claim no merit whatsoever, aside from knowing accurately how to serve.  To be a proper servant requires that all worth and identity builds with the deconstruction and diminishing of self.  I can boast neither outstanding, nor even redeemable qualities.  I accept this fully, and make use of such knowledge in becoming simply and most humbly... a servant.

All that I can in earnest and with conviction offer you is a serving heart.  I am not beautiful.  I am not strong.  I am not wise or knowledgeable, skilled or talented.  I am not stable or even-tempered.  Communication is not a natural gift.  I haven’t an above average voice.  I am not interesting or mysterious.  I have no obvious or unusually desirable traits.  However, I am to be envied above all men.  To be so content, should the highest ranking of kings abandon his splendor and delight in his newfound wretchedness.  For greater than any platform, nobler than any stately title, is the satisfaction of association with one far greater than aspiration could ever attain.  To serve you, to be near you, to have anything at all to do with you... that is fulfillment!

 

 

13th Wednesday, December, 1995; 12:48 AM.

 

Forgive me, I became jealous and angry today.  I did manage over a week without speaking to you, which I can’t say I ever wish to do again.  And in that much time, how many eyes have you caught!  So many self-seeking, overtly gender-bent juveniles scheme to win your favor.  Should that not worry me?  Your favor is what I most value.  It terrifies me that I could lose it.  I can’t imagine what I have been putting you through.  I can’t know if you fully understand why I keep myself from you.  I can’t know if you think it worth the wait.  You have so many options, and I meanwhile am able to offer so little.  I may always be afraid of losing you.  You are the only purity, the only fullness my world has ever known.  To lose you would be to lose hope.  Yes, I could find another as easily as could you, but it would only be a distraction from my overwhelming despair.

Sometimes it takes hearing your voice to remind me how frightened I am to lose you.  Is it the same for you?  If you hadn’t my occasional voice, would the idea be enough to ward off the parasitic gentlemen callers who would so desperately feed off you?  Do I ask too much expecting that you not be moved by their feeble attempts?  I only want you to be your happiest, but that involves this very short period of what sometimes surfaces as misery while we’re apart.  Forget not that you and I serve a God your friends have yet to comprehend.  He is larger than distance or time, and He will not send more than we are humanly able to endure.

I love you infinitely.  I am proud and severely impressed, and consistently surprised at how beautifully and incredibly faithful you have been.  I will never deserve such.

 

 

Winter, 1995.

 

My, you’re a constant thrill, you savage ferocity!  How yet undiscovered you are!  I could for centuries reside in your complexity, timelessly wrestle idiosyncratic irrelevance.  You boggle and astound me, gem.  Your capacity for verbal misuse, your unclothed honesty, humor of loftiest distinction, and wit to ravish the most enlightened warriors of rhetoric.  I swallow your entirety and you lavish my insatiable desire for more.  I sip you and you consume me, every drop more satisfying, more potent than its predecessor.  In a succinct vitality I drift effortlessly about.  You render me sensitive to beauty and longing; how vividly I yield to romance.  I ache for your totality and our intermeshing.  How glamourlessly wholly we might co-exist.  Assault me, lover, with your full arsenal of color, and I will gladly be your canvas for experimentation.  I might subtly interject, even, hues you never suspected.  Discovering you is uncovering the completion of myself.  I no less than careen at the suggestion of you.

 

 

19th Tuesday, December, 1995; 3:09 AM.

 

If I wrote something down every time I thought of you, I could do nothing else.

Earlier today I bought your Christmas present—the four-disc set of Bing Crosby’s "Legendary Years".  I can since think only of listening to it, holding you, Christmas morn.  I will not be happy unless you spend it there with me at my parents’ house.  I don’t care who thinks it awkward, I want to hold you the entire time.  Or else family will mean nothing.

There was a gathering tonight.  I watched an old black and white film and sat touching the brick fireplace.  You weren’t there, so I scarcely noticed anyone at all was.  I pardoned myself early and came home to find that there was again no message.

I'll see you in less than a week.  Be ready to be held.

 

 

27th Wednesday, December, 1995; 12:00 AM.

 

There was a weight to greet this visit.  It has since lifted, but we fear it may return as numbness as this year gives way to one less certain.  My imminent departure overshadows every moment of what time I spend with you.  A wish is spoken and a sigh answers.  Pro and con lists are updated, and yet remain the same.  I honestly consider moving back, locating myself as near to you as possible.  But with considerable sadness, I deem it best to separate us once more.  It is a measure of the patience of love.  If I were selfish, I would certainly monopolize your youth.  But love bears in mind the ultimate wellness of another.

The thought has surfaced that you may be missing something worthwhile.  When I have the luxury to afford taking you as my bride, I want you to never look back in question or regret.  For a decision so substantial you need these years of trial to yourself, to become sound in the God you serve that I am, in fact, your ideal.  If there may be found better for you, I wish it.  I leave you again, knowing full well that we both will suffer the absence of what we truly know to be missing, and expecting to be reunited after such darkness in the bliss of having survived such unthinkable adversity.  I leave because I love you.  And your happiness means more than my comfort.  And your wellness and stability mean more than my avoiding this pain of longing.

 

 

28th Thursday, December, 1995; 5:19 AM.

 

I am only now beginning to realize what it means to become one.  Every thought, every conflict, for better or for worse, is yours to share in, whatever you desire.  There can be no secrecy.  Again I whisper, I love you.

 

 

29th Friday, December, 1995; 1:36 AM.

 

So very much in a day goes wrong.  So cluttered it leaves my mind.  What remedy have I?  I so long to come home to you.  To have a horrid day set right simply by your being near.  I’ve not yet that luxury.  Even so, you are my solace and my sanctuary.  I look forward with severe anticipation to my rest in you, and I hope to be so much for you as well.

 

 

14th Sunday, January, 1996; 1:13 AM.

 

My God is truly everything to me.  In Him I am content.  Happiness, however, is quite another matter.  I can honestly say that I have, to my memory, been only completely happy in your company.  Do not let that worry you; contentment is all I require.  There is no burden on you to be my fulfillment.  But know that any emotion you bring me in hope will not be unmet.  Should you crave humor, I will lighten.  Should you crave sobriety, I will be stern.  Romance, I will be graceful; society, I will liven.  Know also that should you crave separation or space, I will not begrudge.  I will not act foolishly or selfishly regarding you, because I am not willing to jeopardize God’s plan for us.  Should He desire that we part, I send you with my blessing.  Should we remain friends, I will delight in all your joys and suffer all your ailments.  Should He desire that we wed, I will serve you in every way I know how, always striving for more.

The latter I mention too often.  I wonder that you feel no pressure at my anxiety.  I want never to hurry you.  I want never to take more than you wish to give.  But I want you also to know that I have no reservations about you.  My contentment in Christ is strong enough that whichever path you choose for yourself, whether toward me or away, will to some extent please me.  Take to heart, though, for your own enrichment, that you have the power to make someone entirely happy, regardless of all other impending hardships.  There is at least one man in this pale world able to treasure you wholly, and with divine empathy, at your choosing.  I will love you always, in whatever ways you want me to.

 

[An interesting side note:  “Natalie” means “Christmas”, which is what Angel called me.]

 

 

15th Monday, January, 1996; 2:06 AM.

 

I love you so inexplicably much.  At your delicate voice I wish to tell you so.  Now you say a reassuring word, and I close my eyes to whimper at the distance.  I cry simply because you love me, and I am overwhelmed by it.  Had I adequate means, this very hour I would propose.  Never for a moment think me unwilling to commit; I am committed already by my heart.  Only, I love you more than myself, and wish for you whatever may be called ideal.  Truly, you are all that I find untainted and pleasurable in this life.

 

 

4th Sunday, February, 1996; 12:16 AM.

 

I remain so in love with you.  At even this distance, your person etches a smile deep into my skin.  When you, a time zone and several hundred miles away, wonder if at that moment I may be thinking you, it is nearly certain that I am.  Truly, even when you haven’t occasion to wonder, I am.

 

 

15th Thursday, February, 1996; 2:24 AM.

Valentines entry.

 

Roses are dead,

violets are through;

I’m sick at the passing

of days without you.

 

A day of appreciation, of society, of lovers, and of beautiful, hidden mysteries.  A day when my very heart must have frowned and sagged to betray that its only desire was not held in the frame where it belonged.  I received your card.  I kissed it, held it to my lips, and sighed again.  I called, only to stumble onto your machine.  I tried to put it out of my mind and go about my work.  I worried a manager.  I violated a dress code.  I broke a glass jar.  I bought the cassette of “Somewhere In Time” for my car.  I took a walk in a mist of winds.  I drove with no destination for over an hour.  I sat on a picnic table beside my new apartment at one in the morning.  I smoked two cigarettes and walked again. 

Now I lay here amid pipes and ashes, chessmen and fairy tale novels, after only ten minutes of talking with friends, and stare into nothing, and hate everything about our separation, and wish that you were here to curl into and hold.  On another day, caution may slow that sentiment which, honestly, is all I can think to involve you in.  It is not another day: I love you.  I crumble for every unnecessary word you speak.  I blister for every irrelevant thought you entertain.  I yearn to dive fully into you and swim through the depths of your saturated heart.  I am so very in love with you—more astoundingly each day.  The wait for you is growing more unbearable than anyone could have known to warn.  Still, my enthusiasm only builds as that day of lifetimes and of eternity approaches.  I am faint.  I cannot continue….

 

 

19th Monday, February, 1996; 1:46 AM.

 

I so dreadfully miss you, so terribly shudder to return to you.  I cannot live without you.  That is so common to say, but I mean it with fullest possible intent.  I need you.  I need you every bit as much as food and air and shelter—more, perhaps.  You are the only love I have ever chosen for myself, even as my choosing was by God’s goodness.  I say it again; I cannot live without you.  I suppose I could have at one time, but not now.  Not knowing your laughter.  Not after seeing your sincerity and sharing in the desires of your heart.  You are more beautiful every time I picture you, more satisfying with every conversation.  You are my hope and my blessing, my joy and my anchor.  Words are so limited, so unpersuasive.  They can only imply the depth of my affection toward you; it is so beyond anything I might associate loveliness with.  I love you, I love you, and I love you.  There it is.  There is no more to be said.

 

 

25th Sunday, February, 1996; 6:23 PM.

 

Often I wonder that you don’t seem as discouraged as I.

 

 

12th Tuesday, March, 1996; 1:23 PM.

 

Would you open for me?  This heavy, necessary gate I hide myself behind, would you of your own accord enter?  Enter soon, love, and it will slam shut behind, that you will have chosen where to reside.  Certainty is the iron decoration that holds you in, keeps you near to me through so many nights of only the two of us.  I will in this life open only to one, the one who asks and who opens for only me in return.

I cry for simply knowing you, for being so thoroughly touched by passion.  How silly!  How foolish I must be, but it is uncontrollable.  If only you could know what you mean to me.  I should think you would be surprised, because I am so poor at expressing it.  How could I ever express it?  I hardly fathom the depth myself.  But I am sure of it, more so than of anything else in my life.  I wait only for your reply, for you to call, “Open quickly, and enter as well!  I shall be waiting inside, so hurry!”

 

 

26th Wednesday, June, 1996; 1:39 AM.

 

I am so hesitant to write.  I am so afraid to address what regards you, so fearful that I may make some foolish or naive remark and flippantly betray my youth.  You are so much more than I have imagined, so far more complex than I have credited you.  I have not recorded a solitary thought of you in these past months for the mere possibility that they might testify against me and rule in your favor, that you deserve so much more compensation than what my meager earnings can afford.  Of course none of this is literal, only my case put forth in the simplest analogy I can imagine.  I can with no shameless nor extravagant display evoke enough emotion to express how I esteem you.  No passionate embrace or intricate wording is sufficient to relay the depth to which my soul is affected.  I offer no word, knowing how useless the attempt.  I offer no elaboration, though not a night slips by without being deeply disturbed with severe aching for you.  Ah yes!  Every night is of troubled attempts at sleeping and trying hard to materialize you into the pillow I so grasp.  Every young hour feels the speeding of a pulse and the anxiety of whimpering sighs.  There is no exception.  You touch every waking thought, as I not only recount what qualities you exhibit which I so admire, but also project, and place us on some distant night to come, when at long last there is no hanging up the phone, no long drive home, but only two lovers united by a lifetime bond of absolute trust and intimacy.  God, that that night would soon be visited!  Beloved, know how I pine for it!

I want you to know what I think as I look at you, again without exception.  You look at me with question, anxiety, and often apprehension.  You can be with me, and yet not entirely there.  You are able to look without seeing me and listen without knowing my mind.  But my dear, I am not so talented.  I am not able to look at you and not be reminded that I am in love.  I am without the gift of focusing on what is not substantial.  I look at you and see every time how wonderful and splendid you are.  With each glimpse I am renewed in my affection.  With each gaze I find you only more appealing, and appreciate more the individual that you are.  I have in past been known to envy thoughts which did not involve me.  Forgive me, but I am so drawn to what defines you as a person that I eagerly wish to experience it.  Attention may get uncomfortable at times, perhaps inappropriate or even unhealthy.  Please do not let it be awkward for you, I am only conditioned to romanticism, and often exaggerate for emphasis what can be given a poetic ideal.  But even less should that be of any concern, for all that I am knows what you deserve, and all that I strive to be longs to give you as near to that as possible.  I can only be true to myself by offering you all of me, as that is how completely I have been moved.  Accept as much of my love as you are comfortable with, be it friendship or more.  But be honest, or I might be destroyed, for as vulnerable as I have ever been, I am with you.

Before I turn my eyes to the stars, I have one final thought.  Everyone I have ever known, who have not been forced into my life, have been dear to me for a partially wrong motive.  With everyone I am able to think of, I have admired most in them that they showed affection for me.  Not so with you.  Indeed, I am very sensitive, and nearly cry being so overwhelmed by your love, but the intensity of my focus is on you yourself—the you whom I aspire to grow toward, the you I find myself loving as I learn more.  Yes, I have said it countless times before, and I may claim it infinitely more without overemphasizing... I love you.  There may have been a beginning, but there will be no end.  I continue loving you.

 

 

6th Saturday, July, 1996; 1:34 AM.

 

This may have been the most unbearable week I am able to recollect.  I have been in town because I was unable to continue without but the knowledge of you.  No, I did not tell you everything about this visit, because I was unsure of its outcome.  But I am being too vague; let me focus.

I was hurt that you went to the mall with Erik while I waited to meet with you.  I was hurt that you left the coffee house early, left me there with Carol, Eric, and Char.  I was hurt seeing pictures of you looking so gorgeous for other guys, and I was hurt seeing how many strangers you e-mail so often.  More than anything, I was hurt that you could spend three nights at the beach with boys who see you all the time.  My stomach twisted into an origami broken heart when I heard that you stayed up four hours with Brent.  I am jealous!  But please, try to understand why.

I came back to find out how you feel about me.  More than that, I came to see how you would be toward me.  I have lived without you while I thought that was what God wanted, and I truly believe it was.  But I can’t do it anymore.  And it wouldn’t be fair to you to try.  If I were to go away again, I don’t believe I would come back.  Nor do I think I would have anything to come back to.  You are far too beautiful and far too charming for any boy not to see it.  And I know you well enough to know that you enjoy the attention.  So what would happen?  I would go away and you would ease the pain by settling for the people who worship you.  And I am not convinced you would settle for only one.  And I would write morbid verse and sing with a fixed sneer on my face.

I can’t do it.  I am not so young, and not so uncertain of what may be.  I have thought of nothing else for weeks.  It has reddened my sweating eyes and torn a whole in my stomach.  For myself I could die, but I am so flooded with signs of life for you.  I pray that I may be allowed to take any measure to keep you.  So I showed you this journal.  I held back only one thing, and that is that I have decided to move back.  It will not suffice for me to be just another friend.  Nor can I be some far-off non-reality.  I have to be sure that you are sure about me.  I have to be part of your every day.  I need to see how you relate to people when I am in the picture.  I have to know that you really would choose me over everyone else.  And you need to find out as well, because I know you have doubts.  Probably more than I do.  Do not be naive, every boy you spend time with is interested in you to some extent—most likely greater than you think.  And the fact that you do spend time with them suggests on some level that you are somewhat interested in being interested in.  That is what hurts.  Here I am trying to find out how you feel about me so I can make the right decision, and all the while you’re pushing me away to see what happens with other boys.  It feels as though you don’t trust me to consider you.

Please don’t push me away only out of fear.  And please don’t confuse flattery and circumstance with something else.  I know that you are young still, and still surprised to find out how people feel about you.  And I know also that you’ll be attracted to other boys along the road.  I want you to always be honest with me, and I’ll back off whenever you like.  But I also want you to know that I am certain of you, and that I am committed to doing whatever is right and pleasing to our God.  If the day comes that you are sure of me, and sure you want to make a commitment, I want you to consider very carefully what that entails.  It will mean that you’ll have to discourage boys from flirting with you, because if they do so they covet what is dearest to me, and it will suggest to me that I am not your first choice.  Please don’t give me that pain after you make your decision.  For now, I’ll accept whatever you want our relationship to be.  But I am going to do everything in my power to be close to you.  You are the only one who has made me truly happy, and I am not going to lose you without doing everything I can to keep it from happening.

Sometimes I feel like we’re playing some game, where the object is to move toward or away from a relationship.  Sometimes it just feels like tag, one of us trying to get the other.  “You’re it!”

 

 

12th Friday, July, 1996; 2:00 AM.

 

What were you thinking trying to date Ben?!  What were you thinking with any of those people?  Those are the most disturbing pictures I think I’ve ever seen... you with anyone but me!  You’re too good for them.  Too unique, too creative.  Definitely on a higher spiritual plane.  God, how your Homecoming and Prom pictures irritate me!

If I wrote down every thought I wish I could give you, this ill-equipped planet of ours would run out of ink in the next decade.  I already tried to sleep tonight, but I had to elaborate on just one thing I realized as I was praying and thanking God for you.  You really are a part of me.  I don’t mean that you’re important to me, that I would miss you if you left, I mean you’re really part of me!  You’re like... the roots of a tree that spread out into the surrounding earth to be nurtured.  I pray that God rains to me what minerals I need for you to strengthen and not be uprooted.  You’re... you’re... well, you’re like... we’re like that image of two identical faces looking into each other—those faces people see as a vase.  What a failure that image would be if there were only one face!  I realize now that people like Erik will always see you as only one of the faces, and never pay any attention at all to what the picture is trying to say.  But please don’t stop being the other half of the vase!  Without you I wouldn’t be able to hold flowers.  And neither of us would make it into Art or Psychology textbooks.

I will sleep now, but I wanted you to know how deeply you touch me.  I realized only a moment ago that everything my day consists of—every choice I make, every action I take, every thought that enters my cluttered mind—involves you as surely and completely as it involves me.  It would be perfectly just of you to inquire about, or to seek recompense for, any detail.

If you were here, I would kiss you on the cheek.  Good night.

 

 

13th Saturday, July, 1996; 1:39 AM.

 

I have taken note that I feel the odd number at any party.  This is fact.  In nearly all situations there will be, for example, Shawn and Julie, Jason and Dabney, Norman and Audrey, Gene and Kat, or Sarah and her devil; but there is usually only just Ryan.  Usually off in some corner, sitting by himself, writing or talking on the telephone.  My dear, dear girl, can anyone but you correct this?

 

 

17th Wednesday, July, 1996; 2:14 AM.

 

If I should die first?  Well, I hadn’t thought of it.  I suppose I probably will, since I would very soon die of heartbreak were it to happen the other way around.  But you are strong enough to go on should we ever part company—I know that all too well.  I will not begrudge you then the love of another.  You have shown already the unconditional endurance of your incredible faithfulness to me, and you must know that I love you for it.  But I know your mind, and I know your heart, and (dare I say it?) I know your soul.  I know and have come to terms with the fact that you need a companion, a recipient of all the wonderful gifts you have to give.  I know that you are far too fine a lover to not make one man in your life complete.  Even in my eternal home I will remember and treasure everything you were to me.  How fair and how pure, and how able to capture the perfect moment!

I will never forget your laughter, or your smile, or your voice.  I will surely never forget the idol that was your body, that responded so well to my own.  You were ideal in every situation we found ourselves in—ideal in poetry readings, ideal in distance, in sadness, or in saying goodbye.  I have no reservation in assigning you the role of my lover—my most passionate, intimate friend.  As such, take some comfort after my passing in the knowledge that you have done for me everything I needed done, and been to me everything I needed to be with.  More even, you illustrated a deeper level of love than I could ever have imagined, or even fancied into existence on my own.

I know that you will never love me less, just as you have never stopped loving Pete.  And once I’m gone, I wish for a servant of our Lord to be given over to you to make you whole again.  I pray that he sees you as I see you (though, how could anyone possibly?), and I pray that he is given the capacity to love you even a fraction of what I do.  If you know that it is our God’s will, you have my blessing.  But I will speak of this no further; the thought of being apart from you is terrible for me.  I have said my piece.

 

 

19th Friday, July, 1996; 2:30 AM.

 

I have been speaking and thinking lately as though we already were married.  I wish it with every fiber that my body consists of, yet I am anxious.  And such anxieties as do afflict much of this being are in my very own hands that too lack wisdom or scholarship.  The one percent of this populace who share with me a definite and identifiable persona are noted to be a quite devoted minority.  It is held that we make firm spouses and fraternities, and as this theory made way to my ears, did I yearn for you also to share in this, so that you might know what to expect in my intimate manner.  It affirms that we live closely abiding by what is poetic and can be neatly comprised, and that also might you be confused at times by such dealings.

Would that I could as well establish what inside your own heart lies, for I proclaim to you that I am at fault in comprehending your faithfulness—you, so young and alterable.  Pray you, do tell by word or gesture what season your affections now see, whether it be a young and precious spring of blossoming, or nearing a winter to kill off such flowery things.  Nay, I will be never certain of our equality until you once for all commit to being my bride.  ‘Tis true that to my own resolve I could this very night give all to you.  Yet, have I resigned to for ensuing months watch you and come into an understanding of how your tendencies might sway, and likewise how you then shall order them—which will take precedence, and where your duty lies.  It is a matter of most supreme importance that compels this skepticism, and I do hope you settle to my favor that I am a fool.  What a profoundly blissful fool I shall be if the conclusion is that you truly do rest my fears.  I pray it be so.

 

 

20th Saturday, July, 1996; 4:43 AM.

 

I’ve asked my parents to pray that I be less sensitive regarding you.  Quite frankly, all this psychology schlock has got me spooked.  According to my personality profile, I am more intuitive than I admit.  Which I refuse to believe out of sheer stubbornness, because I’m frightfully aware that you are more social than I am.  Try and understand my point.  The INTJ (me) is supposed to be very sensitive, intuitive and enlightened with empathy, faithful and devoted to a select few.  I’m guessing your model will say something to the effect of, “needs the affections and attention of many distant relations” (my own paraphrase, of course).  So my natural inclination is to take it personally when you turn your receiving hands elsewhere to have needs met.  It makes me feel inadequate and insecure in my position.  So I perplex myself, because my mind and heart very often conflict in purpose.

The intuitive bit scares me tonight because you called from Duke while Sarah and I were watching a movie, and something in your tone just irrationally unsettled me—like you were nervous about something.  I continue to hope I am wrong and you were only tired, but my over-hyper-active imagination immediately began writing novels of possibilities as to what you weren’t able to tell me on the calling card.  And I know that fear is a useless and silly thing, but if I lose you, I will have failed in my greatest efforts.  I can’t help wondering if the novelty of someone else will be sufficient to kick us apart.  And I hate that I think that way, but how else could it be irrational?  Forgive me; I doubt.

 

 

20th Saturday, July, 1996; 2:29 PM.

 

Your reluctance to define things distresses me at this moment.  It’s a security for you.  When we were at Heather’s that night and discussed how we should be toward each other, your response was essentially to let things happen as they would.  I was not troubled then because you soon kissed me.  But things may have changed.  My most obvious struggle this past month or two has been with jealousy.  I no longer think it unjust or unprovoked.  Hear me now, and please understand as well as you may.  Since I have been back, you have been to the beach and a writing seminar, and presently are back in Maine.  I have been none of these places with you.  Where I have been is your house.  And on your errands to book and music stores.  It no longer suffices.  I am perhaps cripplingly devoted to you, but after a point it is unrequited.  Yes, you talk about me.  Yes, you call.  Yes, you display a convincing manner of physical intimacy.  But I would like to know where your mind truly is.  What keeps you your safe distance from me?  And there is a distance.

I know that you wonder if another relationship may offer more, and I accept that.  But something about your dealings is flawed, and I suspect it is that you are looking for yet a newer feeling.  Scenario:  You meet boys like Erik, Ben, or David, or whoever, and pursue friendships for the mere novelty of them.  I am not threatened by the fact that you enjoy their company (though I fail to see why).  What does bother me, though, is the vigor with which you pursue them.  Could it be that your uncertainty of me as an absolute compels you to explore every option?  That could be a dangerous tendency.  Do you not know that love is a commitment to one another regardless of feelings?  You frighten me being so led by emotion; feelings will contradict themselves and defile you.  Do you allow yourself to flirt in case a novel feeling comes of it?  I would caution against that.

I know that you will sometimes be attracted to other boys.  I also know that you may not hesitate to encourage them if you feel so swayed.  But when this happens, I ask you to immediately consider with both mind and heart if he is better for you than I am.  And pray for divine wisdom in discerning it.  If God says that this new person is His will for you, tell me straight away so that I might begin getting over you; I’ll need all the time it will take.  But if by comparison this novelty comes up lacking, please lover, do me the favor of not pursuing him with such determination.  Interest generally is met with interest, affection with affection.  If you commit to me, you must realize that your loyalty must come even before whatever new feelings arise.  My depth will not always seem as welcome as another’s shallowness.  Remember to see me with new eyes on occasion.  I love you more than is safe, and will always honor you.  But know also that I think in future tense, and I deserve more than a flirtatious wife.  If you provoke too much, you risk losing me.  Be sure of it.

 

 

Mid-summer, 1996; 10:22 PM.

 

How could I even begin to say what you are to me?  I should just as easily undertake trying to define the details of our universe.

 

 

Mid-summer, 1996; 1:30 AM.

 

I took it upon myself to record every moment of every day during which you did not affect me.  I found it to be a great conservation of ink and paper, having to show for it nothing but an empty journal.

 

 

Early August, 1996.

 

You, dear reader, have been given the only privilege I am able to give—that of my very deepest and most protected thoughts concerning the truest human love I have ever known.  But all phases in life must end, not in despair and irreparable, but in the hope that in Christ Jesus whatever must come will lead ultimately to the fulfillment and undeniable good of his people.  I am yet imperfect, and several of my motives may prove to be impure.  Also, it is quite evident to those well acquainted with me that I may by no means make claim to but a very small amount of discernment—and that not of myself, but from the giver of life and wisdom, the most Holy God.  Nevertheless, let nothing be said but that my aspirations are to more quickly accept, more readily be aware of, more enthusiastically act on--in short, to heed God’s leading with all devotion, all effort, and all faith that His work will not be made idle.

This journal then, with whatever romantic notion called it into existence, becomes at this point less intended as a lover’s gift to his betrothed; rather, its new focus is to record through whatever inspirations, pursuance of a much higher, much purer, and truer love and understanding than a mere human relationship can on its own attain.  Had I any say in what will transpire, it would doubtless be my sincerest desire to conclude this chronicle with my previous resolve.  But as a servant of my Lord, it is impossible to cling to those branches which must be cut off, even grow in another direction.  I will always love and cherish Natalie Downing Willowkist with all of my mind, heart, and spirit.  But if she is to be a sister rather than a wife, let this account of that relationship be honest and upright, and God himself give me the strength to accept such a turn-about.

These coming pages, then, will stress my personal relationship with He whose decision it is as to whether or not my desires of today will remain throughout the ensuing years.  I am reluctant to ask it, but “not my will, but thine be done.”  Natalie, sweet girl, seek with me the fullness of abiding by the Holy Spirit which unites us.  I have seen my share of relationships fail.  I am not willing to repeat those mistakes with you.  Come what may.

 

 

Mid-August, 1996; 1:39 AM.

 

My Lord and Father,

It seems a shame that a distance has grown so great that I now must write you.  Once again you are acting in a way that, though it is no surprise, I had been hoping could have been different.  This shall be a brief note, since it is only prolonging my having to agonize over it.  You have revealed to me this very evening how selfish I truly am.  And you have once again used my sister Natalie to bring it to my attention.  In this turn, I suddenly noticed (with something not unlike a great loneliness) that I truly neither make nor keep what anyone would consider “good friends”.  I have, in fact, been likewise ill-inclined throughout the span of my twenty short years.

Let me sidetrack momentarily for the benefit of whomever may read this, and elaborate slightly on how this revelation came about.  Today was Natalie’s and my second unofficial break-up.  This was, of course, no surprise, but that makes it no less an unwelcome event.  You see, for the present she wants to “be her age” without any obligations exceeding absolute necessity.  At the moment, I’m not sure I don’t regret making such a decision so simple for her, particularly since it came at my expense.  I would perhaps have been better suited had I not been so devoted to begin with.  Ah well, we were foolish.  What can that help now?

At any rate, my reaction was once again not what I would have thought.  I suddenly found no reason to go on speaking to her.  Neither could I see spending time together.  She wants me to be her friend.  But is that as in my definition of a friend?  Because if I treat her the same as the rest, she will scarcely ever hear from me again.  Unless I find some practical use for her, and then only temporarily.  Honestly, that is the summary of my friendships.  Well, if that’s what she wants....

Fix me, Lord God, I’m broken.  Amen.

 

 

13th Tuesday, August, 1996; 12:42 AM.

 

Father, be with my dearest child right now.  When it is time to heal, let her feel again, but no sooner.  Resolve in the mind of her parents what to do, whether to see counsel or to simply separate.  Let them not stubbornly continue such behavior as they showed tonight, but free my Natalie from the great anxieties they inflict.  Honor my request now, Lord, if never again.  Honor just this one, Father.  Your will be known.  Amen.

 

 

14th Wednesday, August, 1996; 1:24 PM.

 

I haven’t much time to spare, but I wanted to inform you, reader, of what new development has occurred.  My sister and I have begun our new jobs and decided on being no more than friends.  The new variable is a fellow artist by the name of Kyle.  I am only a year his senior, though he is beginning his learning slightly earlier than I.  He seems to be at the point I came to after the Akashic Ash episode.  That is, he appears to be exploring the two distinct and contradictory beliefs on what Christianity is.  Ah, I forgot to mention that he is only at present a variable in my sister’s life; I am no more than an introduction as yet.  I very much enjoy what Natalie knows of him, and as much as it frightens me, feel something of a kindredness toward him.  My sister feels the same.  My reaction at this time surprises me.  I find myself entirely—by the goodly name of Christ, it is certain—warm and welcoming to him.  She does not want to enjoy him as much as she does—bless her for that—but the prospect of giving her over to him does not entirely displease me.  I am no longer afraid of my King’s ways, and am open to whatever uncertainty they bring.  I pray my sister feels no undue obligation toward me.  God is good.

 

 

16th Friday, August, 1996; 3:07 AM.

 

We have settled on being friends, and no more.  Although, after spending several hours more together earlier this day, that point is being beaten to the dirt.  I truly hate—not that I am not her exclusive, that would be ludicrous—but that I know she wishes at times to be closer and I do nothing about it.  I suppose I should revisit the stories of the Old Testament; who was it that waited fourteen years—not only endured through, but did so with hard labor—to marry the right daughter of his master?  Ah yes, let that be my inspiration!  Though, in truth, I would rather submit to physical strain than watch my prospect waver before me.  Indeed though, I must truly be in love.

 

 

17th Saturday, August, 1996; 2:44 AM.

 

I reread tonight a journal from years ago.  Strange that I can’t recall those emotions; I seemed so adamant at the time.  All I know to say is that I have been blessed immeasurably.  My god, how I adore Natalie!  To my creator I say “thank you.”  Thank you, and thank you, and thank you!

 

 

19th Monday, August, 1996; 1:08 AM.

 

I am pensive to an undesirable degree awaiting Kyle’s call.  Not more than an hour ago did my sister make me the first to know that she does indeed find something exciting in him.  Now this is yet an early stage, and it may turn out to be nothing above novelty—as fascination often does.  But I must be open to guidance in whatever areas God sees fit.  Should he lead me to welcome my brother and fall to the wayside, such is my lot.  A damnable cursed one, but mine nonetheless.

 

(If I may interject a bit of quelled emotion for my own indulgence, it will take but a moment of your time.  I only wish to say that I would much sooner retire my pen than watch this scenario continue... and in my own handwriting!)

 

Ah, but now that is out of the way and I can again allow myself to be spiritually minded.  I realize now that I have made the mistake of seeking my Lord’s will as regarding Natalie, but have subjected no other to equal treatment.  Well then, I am quite glad this new form of our relationship has emerged, as I might now more readily concentrate on what directly involves my own self.  Father God, know the heart of intentions of this humble creature of yours.  If anywhere in the future you should choose to complete me, let it be with no one less than the sister I love.  And protect her from any irreparable harm.  It is not her I seek, but you who tied her to my heart.

 

 

19th Monday, August, 1996; 2:04 AM.

 

Would I speak prematurely to suggest that the phone will not ring?  I am once more slighted.  Would only a terrible fellow imagine he is on the line with her as I write?  Then a terrible fellow I am, but the last word is mine!

 

 

19th Monday, August, 1996; 8:53 PM.

 

Actually, I am in slightly livened spirits again.  I couldn’t say why.  Perhaps because I was self-focused today; I don’t know that I thought about the child at all in the past half a day.  Yet here I am penning the first entry from the coffee shop where she works.  Actually, she’s there at the counter right now.  She went to Kyle’s house today.  No one knows of the twisted little triangle but us.  I have quite enjoyed this whole day.  I don’t feel bad.

I got a card from Jared today.  The old staff is well and he said they still think of me—just last week they divided scraps of my work and held a memoriam.  I do miss them.  Kathy with all her eccentricities.  Todd with golden vocal chords.  Jed with his purple, and Drew with his green hair.  Chris as impish and ideal as I ever was.  I owe them all so much of my growth.  There are so many memories.

And on the house speakers, a familiar jazz tune sits.  Not with any emotion but peace, it sits.  As it did so many silver evenings at the old Caffé Milano.  And now I long for Mancy, and now I thirst for Elizabeth’s hand squeezed lemonade.  And I wish I could once more stay the latest hours with Annie, Pino interrupting at the most inopportune times with his pipe and his bongos.  And tiny Sally!  What a Godsend to Franklin.  What a wonderfully rich year it was.  But those are stories for another day.  How fond I am of it all.

I suddenly realize what a sin it is to account mostly from my quarters at home.  I should be out in life and vivacity, in the warm, approving gestures of the smiling unknown.

Now then, where was I?  Ah, where I am.  I had not meant to stay, but my sister seemed to desire it.  How welcome is work, eh?  But I am not unhappy to sit here.  It matters little to me at the moment that I have no camaraderie.  I have had it, perhaps of a higher quality than anyone should expect.  Strange how many names I’ve forgotten.  Strange how much they meant at the time.  The jest is that tomorrow I may revile my abominable qualities again.  What a silly, silly thing!

 

 

21st Wednesday, August, 1996; 9:09 AM.

 

I sit about to be inducted into the Starbucks work staff.  This is one of those moments while reflection is fresh and plausible, a moment aware of scenarios not yet occurred.  I have far less time for my sister now that I am here, and school begins with the coming of the new week.  And now I must go... a side note is upon me.

 

 

7th Saturday, September, 1996; 2:19 AM.

 

To my sister, my lover,

God, how I love you!  I love your company, your speech, your gestures and thoughts.  And how I love your touch!  The curve of your neck and the tilt of your head.  How excited I am by a simple hug.  Rest assured that no one could touch me the same.  A slight brush of your body’s temperature moves me more than any practiced lover could ever attempt.  I am so captive to you.  You are so flawless to me.  My heart, I admit at last, is irreversibly bound to you.  I know bliss, I know ecstasy only in your embrace.  The way you curl, or the way you stretch—both equally inexpressible!  You are so fluid, so full of grace, and so appropriate.  You enrich everything for me.  You flavor things so that the whole of my surroundings are saturated with goodness.  You are so much more to me than I can say.  You are so much more than you know.

 

 

12th Thursday, September, 1996; 1:23 AM.

 

If you were here right now... the things I would do!  Ask me sometime to elaborate.

 

 

15th Sunday, September, 1996; Noon.

 

I am at work.  Again.  Or still, if feelings serve.  We had the post-church rush in the past half hour.  Jimmy asked me earlier if Natalie still works here.  I am so privileged that people ask me about her.  So, because I am able to answer.

 

 

27th Friday, September, 1996; 1:07 AM.

 

If I wrote down every thought to impose it’s brand of entertainment on my mind, the world would be worse off than it already is.  So I begin what I assume to capture a days essence?  No, forget this day.  It does not exist.  It is erased.

Now however, I am for the second time hoarding my possessions into the corner of my gem’s guest room.  The torturous, terrible game of it is how she now lies only twenty feet away.  Ah, the miles!  Ah, the length!  Under this taunting, abominable roof I am not at liberty to more than but touch her.  Do I enjoy my stay here?  Not at all!  I am a royal joke to the gods of intention.  I wish a surge of adrenaline to the hour hand.  I will not further with this madness.

 

 

30th Monday, September, 1996; 12:57 PM.

 

The world became jealous at our introduction.

 

 

3rd Thursday, October, 1996; 12:58 AM.

 

I have written so little because we so often speak.  And yet, no, not enough.  I was so hideous today.  My skin is like the surface of the moon, and so it looks better from a distance.  Yet, you saw me.  You saw me at my worst, and even so you love me.  I could not have done anything to deserve you.  No, I certainly do not.  Yet, are you still mine?  Wonder of wonders, you are!  Ours is not the perfect fairy tale material we had imagined.  Ah, but the novel is that much more endearing in development.

Everyone has gone now.  There is no threat to my position, although for your own sake I half wish there were.  You are too attractive for me.  We speak as if we were bound already, and you, you lovely thing, as if it did not bother you.  How are you content?  I do not comprehend.  How can you not search beyond me for the remainder of your due?  How could I ever be enough for you?  It is not enough—no, it cannot be—but I must reinforce it, again and again.  I love you.  Unspeakably.

 

 

11th Friday, October, 1996; 1:51 AM.

 

I am an awful storyteller.  So many days have passed, and I have neglected to enlighten you, dear reader, to the state of things.  To summer, Kyle is long gone—he was no more a brother than he was able to hold interest.  I am down to only two weekend shifts left at Barnes & Noble, and both Natalie and I are looking into prospective colleges.  I see her once or twice a week, though we’ve a tendency to talk for hours most nights.  We know that we care very deeply for each other, and the grand joke is that we are free to consider ourselves either free or dating, depending on the circumstances.  I spend the small remainder of my time on the phone, with Sarah, or on the computer, working on the Servants, Kings, & Worms Trilogy.  But tonight I canceled my plans with Sarah and Matt to film Natalie’s English project.  And there you are caught up, and now I turn away from you to address my lover.

I fell in love with you again tonight.  It worked quite the opposite of what I had planned.  I had considered breaking out the old walking stick from New England.  I wore the outfit from the black and white on your guest room bulletin board and psyched myself up to be charming.  That lasted all of the drive over; I saw you and forgot myself.  I wanted to latch onto you and bear down into your neck.  God, you are gorgeous!  While I was away, I was safe to think about such things—your hips, and your shoulders, and stomach.  But tonight you became dangerous.  Tonight I must keep my attention from your legs and your chest, from your hips and the slightest belly between them.  God speed the years; how I long to have you!

 

 

21st Monday, October, 1996; 1:36 AM.

 

I do not feel quite verbal this instant.  I only looked again at your pictures and wish to reiterate that I am hopeless for you.  Affection swells and overflows.  I now understand the sentiment that there may actually be a person one “cannot live without.”  If I live, it is either with you or alone; there are no other options than the two.

 

 

27th Sunday, October, 1996; 12:48 AM.

 

Ah, how foolish I am!  How juvenile!  And do I know when to ease?  No, simply no.  I was granted a day off next week, the day she asked me to take.  So excited I was, and bought a small card to hand write an invitation in.  But the card itself was too plain, so I bought a smaller one to place inside, one I hoped would make her laugh out.  But when I stopped by the cafe, I decided to leave it instead on her windshield as a surprise—how romantic, eh?  Then as I drove home I remembered an old film, and pictured myself in the front window with signs to her, ignoring the roomful so as to relay that she alone mattered.  So I stopped by a department store to purchase a dry erase board.  And while I was there a fiendish balloon’s haunting smile lipped, “Buy me now.”  So I did, and tied it to her wiper to call attention to the note.  But as I was envisioning the window scene, it struck me that I could tape a rose to the outside as I was leaving.  (I used packing tape from the stockroom, and accidentally taped my finger to the glass for a good ten seconds.)  So I knocked and waved, and wrote, “hi.  i miss you.”  Then I left.

Half the way home I became afraid of where she parked, that if she sat long enough to read the note, and it being a night of drunken celebration... well, my thoughts just go wild.  So I drove back and waited in the next parking lot forty-five minutes to see that she left safely.

Now that I have not heard from her, my imagination once again flares.  She could have been in an accident, her vision being impaired by the gigantic floating head next to her.  She could be angry and embarrassed by such attention in front of co-workers.  I know nothing this night but my severity, and I rebuke myself for it.  God help me now sleep, and bless me with uncharacteristic dreams.  Wake me for nothing less than her phoning.  Again, how foolish!

 

 

29th Tuesday, October, 1996; 12:00 AM.

 

I detest that I’m writing this to you, because there are several hundred more pressing matters to tend to at this moment.  But I’ve just spoken the truest words I may so far claim—although I think we know whose words they really are.  This is the summary:  I have just told Natalie that she is indeed free from me, that no matter how badly she may ever hurt me, it will be temporary and I will make good of it.  I confided that no matter what else I may say on the subject, I will ultimately be content whether she leaves me or not.  I would prefer the latter, but God got hold of my mouth for a moment and I actually heard myself convincingly state that I do not need her, and that if she should decide she does not want me closest to her, she will fade the way everyone else has.  She was very silent and very attentive, and I imagine she’ll ponder it for some good while, just as she ponders the importance of everyone else she has been inclined to lately.

An afterthought which struck upon further contemplation is that perhaps she needs to learn to give up what is important to her.  She did not seem very willing to surrender our twisted grin of a relationship to its giver, and I wonder now if I really will lose her in order that she may learn to accept loss more readily.  After all, I’ve been very secure with the idea of late, but my dear young sister is having an awful time with it.  This is only a possibility, unfounded and fatalistic, but I think it quite healthy of me to be willing to accept it even in theory—even if nothing comes of it.

 

 

13th Wednesday, November, 1996; 2:48 AM.

 

I shouldn’t think this way.  I think as though we’re promised to each other.  I think as though she is already sworn to be mine.  God, I want to be a good lover!  The thought of her laughter, the thought of her melancholy—they flirt hard with my longing.  My anxiety is hers.  It is all hers.  I am so unable to give more.  I reach out with the core and most primal elements of my self.  It is done.  I have bound myself to her.  I have committed myself into her hands.  Damn time, damn separation!  Damn youth, and damn financial obligations that keep us apart!  I know who I belong to, and I claim who is mine.  Now damn the wait!  We speak incompletely; our sentiments are unfinished.  God, that I could finish my sentence!

 

 

19th Tuesday, November, 1996; 11:26 PM.

 

I have not been very cautious.  I allowed myself to love you.  And to have need of you.  Thoughts and knowledge of you continue to touch my days with breaches of intense saturation.  Your absence is at times unbearable.  And I know that you think about me, and that makes the whole thing a stupid waste of emotion.  I want to do everything for you, and I am not able even to rest my eyes.  Our souls may be bound, but the mundane and useless things of detail have smothered our friendship.  I am given ample and abundant time to miss you, but little to savor and less to cherish.  I have not seen you for a thousand years.  We do not exist.  Yet...

I love you nonetheless.  I honor you still.

 

 

4th Wednesday, December, 1996; 2:31 AM.

 

I would surrender a lifetime of nameless encounters for an hour of your purity.

 

 

11th Wednesday, December, 1996; 3:52 AM.

 

As I lay there in my bed tonight, I thought of all the girls I loved who are gone now.  Lana still making left hand turns in Palm Beach, probably acting again; Shara in Utah, probably divorced by now; Angel, God knows where, doing who knows what; Delia right there in Tampa where she’ll always be; Sarah, the same; Heidi probably a religious fanatic, maybe pregnant by now.  I thought of Julie at the bookstore, and Marci from high school, and Dawn’s beautiful sister Gloria.  I thought of them, and then I thought of you.

I thought of how changed things are since I moved back, how we no longer date, no longer use those ridiculous titles.  I thought of how I can never touch you, and how we barely speak beyond the simple recounts of days.  I thought of the future, and how terrified I am that I might fail.  I thought of God and I thought of time, I thought of places and I thought of dreams.  And at long last I settled on thinking of nothing more than just you.  Simple you and your marvelous attributes.

I thought then of how I have no external reason—no coincidental circumstance plotting us together—to regard you so highly.  But I thought of you apart from me, the person you are, excitable and intimidated, manic and together.  I thought of you laughing at some kid’s jokes.  I thought of you flirting with boys you have no intention of pursuing.  Yes, I thought of you as entirely your own and entirely God’s, and I realized with a surge of renewing that it is unquestionably, unequivocally, undeniably you that I love.

I can’t know how much I will love you in ten years, but if the depth I fall continues at such a mind-boggling pace... well, I should think I will spontaneously combust long before I reach the limits of how you deserve to be worshipped.

 

 

27th Friday, December, 1996; 2:00 AM.

 

This week Natalie met a boy named Will.  He was funny and handsome, witty and young, and he quoted Kierkegaard to her.  Ooh, they have so much in common!  His parents are recovering alcoholics, so he had to grow up fast.  And so on.

Long story short.  I knew she had met someone else before she told me.  I heard it in her hesitance.  I heard it in her excitement, and I read it in her guilt.  Oh, but the guilt is of the “how do I break it to Ryan” sort.  Rest easy, dear, I’ve known from the start.  Here’s the sick irony; she’d never even read Kierkegaard until she saw me reading his diaries—and this quote impressed her!  The next day she ended up at his house again, to give him a Christmas card.  I, on the other hand, got nothing.  All of this I was able to accept, as she wished, and still be her friend.  But Christmas day was outright treachery toward me, and I will elaborate.

On Christmas Eve’s phone call we discussed her new feelings and my reactions, and promised to try to remain friends.  All I asked was that I be allowed to stop by for all of two minutes of her holiday (it being my only day off) to drop off the gift basket I had prepared.  (It consisted of several bags of coffee which I later drank; an Ensor mug which rests on a coaster beside me, half full as I write; a framed poem I wrote exclusively for that day, of which no other copy exists; a locked box of the letters she wrote while we were still in love, to which I carry the key; and a copy of the lyrics I wrote for her in the past several months.  The basket itself is a quite impressive wicker one, but it now sits wasted by my door, holding business papers I haven’t sorted through yet.)  She agreed to call once she got home from her Grandmother’s house that morning.  She also told me that she’d been invited to Will’s father’s house, but that she would not go.  So I waited Christmas day for a call that never came.  I gave her the benefit of my doubts, and withheld my suspicions that she broke her word on both accounts.  In an attempt to ease my mind, in case she might still be with her family, I called.  I called, hoping for the answering machine with her irritating message to click on.  But the story does not end that way.  No, it was her father, who answered with, “Who is this?”  And his tones are more revealing even than hers.  I knew immediately she was with Will, and I knew that her father would not tell me so, and I knew that she would not call.  And wonder of wonders, again I was right.

I spent today in a depressing slump on the couch, half sleeping, half listening to Mojave 3 on repeat, until she finally called at ten thirty.  How happy I was to hear that she had a wonderful Christmas with her family... and with Will.  Oh, but how tired she was!  So I suggested in an obvious way that she go to bed, and her reply came, “You don’t want to talk to me, do you?”  And mine came very plainly, “No.”  And she had the courtesy of saying, “I know, I’m a jerk.”  I gave her the summary of my day, and concluded with, “I can’t be the kind of friend you want, so... bye.”  And her phone clicked even before mine.

I was trembling uncontrollably, my entire body, so I drove out to Lutz to sit in a parking lot and smoke half a pack of Shermans.  I got home about an hour ago.  I didn’t cry once, and now I’ll probably drift off into sleep.  Then tomorrow I’ll wake up and go to work as if nothing has changed.  Because, frankly, very little has.

 

 

17th Friday, January, 1997; 2:20 AM.

 

These past few months have had little to recount.  I maintain a job as music buyer for a Christian store; my checks are sent from the Baptist Sunday School Board, a respectful, though somewhat boring organization.  I have spent no great deal of time with anyone I would consider significant, and my hobbies have been put, for the most part, on hold.  All of life is stable and secure.  And it saddens me.

Why so?  I miss Natalie.  But I miss her not in the familiar ways; it is difficult to say exactly what this is.  We still speak several times a week.  (Oh, after the Christmas incident, the relationship and expectations changed, but we spoke again days later as if we were best friends—which, after all, we are.)  It’s almost sounded as though she misses me lately as well.  Oh, but that is irrelevant to my point this morning.  I mean simply to say that, as of now at any rate—years may see differently, I couldn’t say—at the very deepest level beneath all my current shallowness, this beautiful friend of mine is still my hope.  I do not really care—I have desires, yes, but they are easily stilled—what we become in the years now upon us, so long as I don’t lose her.  Everything within me wants only to never be without her.

I was reminded of that tonight.  It is exam week for her at school, and heavy returns week for me at the store.  Even so, she called around ten-thirty or eleven, and we talked, as usual, late into the night.  It has been necessary to remain somewhat distant, and we do it fairly well, but somewhere in the conversation it reoccurred to me that I absolutely loved everything about this woman I was on the line with.  A moment in particular (which as I tell it now will lose nearly all of its appeal) was when, observing the unusual decor of my bedroom, I mused, “I have a wooden armadillo.”  To which she instantly replied, “I have that effect on people.”  And it struck me as the most entertaining thing I’d heard up to that very moment.  After a full three minutes she said, “I haven’t heard you laugh like that in a long time.”  And I thought to myself, “Well, you haven’t been around to spark it.”

As an emotional human, I claim exemption from scrutiny for what I am about to say, because I feel very strongly that this is true.  I cannot be complete without Natalie Downing Willowkist firmly embedded in my life.  This is as significant to me as any of the gospels.

 

 

Mid-January, 1997; 5:25 AM.

 

A typical night; space heater on, rain disc on repeat.  Up all night typing and watching TV.

 

Not much of a speech tonight.  Only that it occurred to me for the first time that I am not the only male worthy of a relationship.  This hit only moments ago while trying to discern why Natalie takes all the freedom I give, and then some.  She must really have lost any romantic inclination toward me, as last night she was Homecoming Queen as some gangster-eyed adolescent’s date, and later today she will be canoeing with the boy from the bagel shop.  Well, happy for me then!  A lesson in humility; I am truly no measure superior even than schoolboys!  At that, I sincerely wish a deep coma to come over me.  Good night then.

 

 

17th Monday, February, 1997; 3:08 AM.

 

Let me alone and without thoughts of her!  How this torments me!  I cannot bear the attack of such assuring sweetness after so many nights without a taste.  Has she returned?  Then all hell ventures forth...  my murderer is upon me!

 

 

Mid-March, 1997; 4:17 AM.

 

I have seen defeat.  Again.  How foolish a heart longs so steadily against the freedom of Christ.  For his is the wisdom, and his also the future.  I will say as much as this, then elaborate no further, for I can never again think of her without the deepest sense of remorse, loss, and regret.  She (you know very well who I mean, be not sinister that I should speak it) has chosen for herself a life with me at only the coldest of lengths away.  Time will know the rest, but I have no further claim, and less the right to further chronicle.  So be it, I have loved and lost another.  Christ be my comfort and my salvation.  Amen.

 

 

Summer, 1997.

 

I know you’ve had doubts about me, and I know you still do.  I want you to understand that it is the only reason I let you go.  I want you to know when you choose to settle down that it’s definitely what you want, and I want you to know why.  The freedom I gave you was the most difficult act of love I’ve ever been forced to show.  If you ever choose to come back to me, be certain, because I will never let you go again.  Not ever again.

 

 

27th Monday, October, 1997; 8:19 PM.

 

The truth is…

 

I would yet surrender these very tears to her, these tears that hold all history, and the tears which carry through to the very end of time.  Only now do I comprehend passion, and to such an extent as can never be relayed.  Pardon me then, dear reader, for you have heard the beginning of my tale, but the rest is hers and mine alone; we are the only two with whom such intimacy exists.

 

 

II.        Serenades

 

 

Tidings

 

Before and to the back of me,

in bi-polar feline abrasiveness,

I find the composite compliment

of whomever, what ever I have adored,

taken in as medicinal and spat back as praise.

Fair tidings to you, dear Shelley Southgate;

you, and beside you dear Mandy, fellow poet.

I trust that in Christ—our bond still confirmed

to never weaken— good will toward you

is not unmet. Ah, Amber! Light umber

length and companion of occasions,

think yourself never an unwelcome visitation,

nor somber enthusiast Carol, nay!

Affections true do not in time weaken;

neither are they yet without frame.

Indeed, never more satisfactorily have

all your stray qualities aligned themselves

to one truly unblemished union

—my truest, my dearest, my most

precious of all; my beloved!

 

 

A Most Incredible Thing

 

A most incredible thing

happened to me today;

it had to be a most incredible thing

to make me feel this way.

Now, you ask, by “most incredible thing”,

what possibly could I be thinking of?

I most incredibly, drastically, wonderfully

spastically, went and fantastically fell in love.

 

A most desirable thing

happens when I’m with her;

sudden unusual and unexpected things

cause my heart to stir.

And the only explanation I can give

for what I’m speaking of?

I most incredibly, frantically, truly

romantically, went and gigantically fell in love.

 

I refer you to the most significant thing

that I’ve been dreaming of;

I most incredibly, readily, deeply poetically,

went and pathetically fell in love.

I incredibly, steadily, could-be-genetically,

went and pathetically fell in love.

 

 

Discovering You

 

How old can we get?

Can we die hand in

hand, side by side?

Will we ever forget,

you and I, how we

stand much obliged?

How aged will we be

when the end finally

comes? Will you be

with me, my precious

someone? How close

can we grow? Can we

wind ‘round each

others’ hearts, intertwined?

What more can we

show? What vital signs?

We throw poisoned

darts, self-inclined.

 

I tried, how I tried to

leave you lying satisfied;

my breed, you succeed to

chill my spine and tantalize.

The only thing that matters

in the world is uncovering you.

 

I tried, how I tried to

etch our names, immortalized;

my dear, you appear, be-

wilder, tame, and mystify.

The only thing that matters

in the world is discovering you.

 

 

She Is

 

Do you laugh when you say that you love me?

She does.

Do you smile and spin around to think of me?

She does.

 

Are you met with enthusiastic bliss?

Are you secured in a monumental kiss?

She is.

 

Do you play the song that instantly moves me?

She does.

Do you kick and tickle, bite and bruise me?

She does.

 

Could you talk to me for hours on end?

Would you consider me your very best friend?

She would.

She does.

She is.

 

 

First Kiss

 

There were others... or were there?

I can’t remember what they were.

You had another few... or did you?

Right now, they’re all a blur.

I stole only the kisses you wanted me to,

knowing full well that in a second-split

sip of your tea-sweet spit,

it would happen

—and I fell!

 

Now I’m giving you the rest

of me to finally be complete;

you were first to kiss my life

totally.

 

There were letters, there were anxious nights,

and bites on the wrist; teeth marks traced with

my tongue in your face, and a lick of the lips.

Locks clamp down on the pinwheel now,

and spinster gives whirl to bone

dry silence in hue-man form

—spectacular girl!

 

Now I’m giving you this body,

since you’ve given soul to me;

you were first to kiss my life totally.

And I’m gushing you this sap

for tapping into who I need;

you were first to fill my life

fluidly. Are you pleased?

You were first to kiss my life

perfectly.

 

 

I Am

 

Smitten I am,

breath and flavor captive.

Captive... captivated I am.

Stricken... sicken,

bitten sick by love tick,

swift skip on a mind trick,

lit candle wick by the flicker flip,

drip kick into lip stick.

Kitten I am, fresh and unattractive,

brittle, little-knowing tacit,

thrill spilling, still bewildered facet;

basket case in resting space,

transitional respite.

 

 

Never Be A Memory

 

Don’t want to talk about today the

way we still talk about yesterday.

Don’t want to think about

that night with you, all right?

I’ll do everything that I can

to keep it from fading away.

 

I love you, child,

today, tomorrow,

twenty years from now;

you’ll never be a memory,

you’ll stay with me somehow.

In sickness and in health,

depression, poverty, or wealth,

with who I want to be;

you will never be a memory.

 

Don’t want to act like we

’re through, me and you;

desperately, you see, I

mean to merge the two.

Don’t want to live

separately, you from me;

now that I have you, I

can’t exist independently.

 

I love you, child...

(enough to repeat myself.)

 

 

Time Apart

 

We’re too young, and we can’t exactly know

where our time comes from or where it goes.

We’re young; we are young and in love.

I’m here, you’re much too far away;

I don’t want to think of it.

 

Enjoy all this time apart; when I come

for you, we’ll own each others’ hearts.

Say your prayers, pray we never stray;

I’m hoping you’ll belong to me someday.

 

I’m ornery, and I think you know why;

I’m restless for you to be my bride.

You’re perfect, your hair and skin and eyes;

we feel the distance, oh, but please don’t cry.

 

Enjoy all this time apart;

our lives together have yet to start.

Say your prayers, pray this time will pass;

I want desperately to be with you at last.

 

And twenty years from now,

this will all seem so unreal

...this separation; we’ll

think and laugh and feel again.

 

Enjoy all this time apart;

I ache for you, like shackles on my heart.

Say your prayers, pray it happens soon;

I don’t know how much more

I can take without you.

 

 

Be There

 

When I hung up the phone,

I didn’t feel alone,

‘cause I knew that if you could,

you’d be there.

 

Just when my foundation was starting to sway,

with the harsh wave of cold, unfeeling air;

you broke through my frustration

with the sunshine on your face,

and assured me that you only mean to care.

 

I love you.

I love you.

You’re so delicate,

delicious and fair.

 

I love you.

I love you.

Know that if I could,

I’d be there.

 

 

Easy, I Cry As Much As You

 

It’s a mystery to me

that morning still comes.

[Sunlight.] Striking eyes

can’t imagine where it’s from.

It seems to me there

should have been a change

of cataclysmic proportions

since we’ve become estranged.

 

How do I stand no longer

melting in your hand the way I used to?

It’s easy, I cry as much as you.

 

It weighs heavily on me,

the distance we’ve allowed;

I’ve since burrowed under,

and you’ve been in the clouds.

It’s a tragedy to stay

so consistently away,

when I’ve every inclination

to return to you someday.

 

How do I face no longer

tasting the taste I was so used to?

It’s easy, I cry as much as you.

 

It’s a travesty to see

how things are utterly the same;

my life proceeds unknowingly,

while muttering your name.

It’s a tapestry of need—

our fingers blister, ache, and bleed,

‘til separate threads eventually

pull close into the weave.

 

How do I bear no longer

mirroring the stare once introduced to?

It’s easy, I cry as much as you.

 

It’s easy, I cry an ocean too.

It’s easy to cry the way I do.

 

 

That We Soon May Be One

 

Life has seen now

its own eternity in your touch,

been robbed of such nearly as long.

I have chosen for myself

the lack of your laughter;

still, you laugh on.

Were there any way of knowing

with any degree of certainty

whether I were doing the right thing,

I could perhaps comfort you

through at least your allotment

of my self inflicted suffering.

But with the intricate weave

of my heart so incomplete,

in the delicate pelting of suns,

know only that present and future

are steeped in the hopes

that we soon may be one.

 

 

Better Than Sex

 

I’ve been trying all day to find the way to tell you

what I want to say as I gaze at your face.

I’ve grown somewhat closer to a hallway mirror,

though it’s clear you will not stay in one place

long enough to sleep while wide awake,

cheek to cheek and ache to ache,

with he who has been living under strain.

 

You’re better than sex, and I should know,

because there’s nothing I want more

than to taste a chaste, young virgin

after years of being pure;

and just to be sure you’re the first,

I wear four belts and sleep on floors.

 

I have to look away, or the games my mind

plays may sway me and lead us astray.

Brace yourself, you know what I’m thinking;

I’ve an inkling to touch you in intimate ways.

But we who choose another course,

and pull the cart behind the horse,

we must have tapped into the source.

 

You’re better than sex, and I should know,

because if truth must be confessed,

I made a mess of things before,

and yet I stored for you my best;

and yes, the rest of the world

nod their heads in distress.

 

You’re better than sex, and I can

say that knowing it’s perfectly true.

Of course, that’s not to say I won’t

one day be sexual with you;

it’s only proof that you mean more to me

than anything I’d really like to do.

 

You’re better than sex...  dear God,

then what will sex with you be like!?

You’re better than coffee flavored

ice cream on the tongue.

 

 

I Owe You That

 

I am the candidate

for representing you;

election incentives

in the voting booth.

I should fashion a mansion

from Popsicle sticks,

campaign my splintered

rhetoric from countless licks,

until it sticks that I’m the

president shot in the head;

I owe you that.

 

I should honestly

pray myself to sleep,

cover my head

instead with celibacy.

The mothers and sisters,

accordion shaped,

stately able, and made

to make grave mistakes,

rake the tables and faint

at the vaguest display;

I owe you that.

 

I should dominate airwaves

—I owe you that;

hold my breath under

flesh-melting liquid baths.

In the vastness of capacity,

I need to be sensitive;

I owe you that.

 

I am construction

worker heckling.

I am a wrecking

ball dismantling.

I am randomly strewn

‘ludes and pruning shears,

redistributing beauty

that soon disappears.

I should carve in your yard

large barges and sharks;

I owe you that.

 

Late night, iced coffee,

toffee telephone,

arms around miles

wide and tightly woven.

I should ration your traction,

impassioned and wise

to your coaxing reactions

to flashes and sighs,

try to trivialize a

lifetime of besides;

I owe you that.

 

I should organize Thanks-

giving Day parades,

play a game of charades,

and sharpen your blades,

make a statement by

blatantly running

for government;

in fact, I owe you that.

 

I should peel your bananas

—I owe you that;

bed in breakfast, and

purr like a pussycat,

slap a welcome mat

flat on my splatter of

ventricle rat traps;

I owe you at least that.

 

 

Beautiful Friends

 

I should have gone out tonight with my

beautiful friends, who all have always

been considerate enough to call

and say they love me, and invite me out,

even after all this time repeating a pattern,

a pattern where I say, “Thanks away,”

and I struggle with my far too emotional heart,

and the fact that the girl who claims to love me

is out tonight with her beautiful friends,

and hasn’t called, although she said she would;

instead she sleeps at the beach house

with three strange boys I have never met,

and she figures it’s okay—we’ll see

each other tomorrow anyway.

 

I do it to myself, as I have always done;

I have far too much regard for someone

obviously too young to belong to anyone.

I do it to myself... will I never learn?

Romantics get what they have earned;

and tragically, it appears to be my turn.

Tragically, I do it to myself.

Honestly, I don’t see why I do.

 

 

Miss Metaphor

 

Much colder

and you could be the rocks

that crash against my drink.

Much softer

and you could be the down

in which I drown and sink.

Any brighter and my retinas

would burn right out,

engulf my head in flames.

Miss Metaphor,

pour yourself humanely down

the funnel of my drain.

 

Have mercy,

on bended knee,

once both alter and shrine.

Take pity on

this creature and unleash

your beast upon mine.

Cross my arms

across my heart, and you,

a stitch or incision away.

I taste you

like a Tylenol, Miss Metaphor,

washed down with Chardonnay.

 

Much warmer

and mercury could evaporate

to silver lined clouds.

Much sweeter

and Candyland itself would

grow a throat to slide you down.

Any purer

and an angel would

eagerly trade in its wings.

Miss Metaphor,

alluring and astounding,

do you think about such things?

 

 

Protect Me Not

 

Protect me not from the sting

of the desolation that whips at your skin.

Leave me not out of the string

of tedious and terrible things your life will see.

But wholly confide

with what tragically inspired tears coincide,

that I may, when I hold you,

do so that much tighter.

 

 

Waiting On You

 

Silken petaled flower,

have I become a weed,

branching like capillaries,

spread through soil of need?

And do I cast a shadow?

Do you shiver under leaves?

Do I offer no protection from

the storms of autumn eves?

 

Will you wilt unless I leave?

Should I uproot myself and

let you blossom free?

Must I be sheared at the stalk,

lopped off, and heaved?

Or would you petal-brush,

or pollinate, or dip,

and drip your seed on me?

Have I a reason to be

waiting on you?

 

Bundled, huddled kitten,

swaddled in finesse,

do you lap the acid

mixture of duress?

Has my mouth grown sour?

Is your head too bruised to pet?

If I bit you, would you sharpen

your claws against my neck?

 

Will you purr and press

against my chest?

Could we curl into

curves of silent rest?

Or must you shed the coat

of all I’ve ever said?

Will you strip yourself

of sheets of me,

lie there in your bed

and freeze?

Have I a reason to be

waiting on you?

 

 

The One Thing

 

Kiss in a cotton cloud—

I was never allowed to.

“Now tell me what this is about.”

I choose to defer to

the weakest of my listeners,

who seldom speak and less converse,

rehearsing in the mirror what to say

when she finally responds.

 

Boyfriend in your favorite dress,

and blouses impress you;

leap and bite and mime “caress”—

a louse at a rescue,

from sitting in the fitting room,

undressing for the camera zoom;

sooner than you think, we’re going to

drink from algae-filled ponds.

 

And the one thing I

promised wouldn’t bother me

became the very thing that

threatens now to clobber me.

Your mother and your

father seem to like me;

now what about you?

 

Privacy of other rooms—

assuming I’m listening.

I think I have a right to;

is he frightened and blistering?

“Too damn abstract,” he said,

a tuning fork to sort my head;

who mans the track we tread,

the pathological maze?

 

Terrible poetry—

a writer of fiction,

with learning disabilities,

and dreaded afflictions.

One down and six to go;

naiveté makes gardens grow.

“Oh, stow it, Mr. Jealousy...

let us go our ways!”

 

And the one thing I vowed

would never trouble me

became the only thing to

plague my insecurities;

surely by now you

see what I mean.

So what about you?

 

The one thing I swore

would never get to me

is the war torn banner

you regret to free.

(It seems to me my

gag reflex is healthy.)

Now what about you?

 

 

No Finger To Mood

 

We can spit out the garble of marbles

and bargain for more time to harden

the scars on our garbage-picker hearts,

but will it ever see resolution?

Or we can lower our feet onto the glass

of downcast glances and bandage

pranced on toes of expanses in thought

—beckon fecund evolution.

But I can never, never, never see your face again.

 

Tonight, you started in a star struck awe,

and garden partied patios, and covered up

mouse holes with dollhouse wallpaper strips;

then you looked up at me with a queer grin.

Tonight I left with bottles of emotion in a bag,

now I’m staggering drunk off the junk

you sunk into this package of rags;

give the poison a chance yet to do me in.

I can never, never, never see your face again;

and I can’t say why, with no more

than that I feel.

 

 

I Don’t Know Why

 

The very instant the

words leave my mouth,

I would retract them gladly.

Every passing minute when

you’re all I think about,

I want to hold you badly.

 

It’s madness, the sadness

that gladdens my heart.

 

I don’t know why I watch you.

I don’t know why I hand you knives.

I don’t know why I want you.

I don’t know why I even try.

 

Another incident has

left me half mended,

and half dismembered.

I, in my ignorance, admit

the courtship’s ended

like a smoldering ember.

 

The distress of sickness,

the princess, the fool...

 

I don’t know why I touch you.

I don’t know why I taste your heat.

I don’t know why I trust you.

I don’t know why I take and eat.

 

Could it be the strain of living

has been keeping me in bed?

Could it be this cosmic comedy

is all just in my head? Would you

please not tease the hope in me;

I’m groping through this smoke,

half expecting that the end will be

the grandest of the jokes.

 

I don’t know why I bleed you.

I don’t know when I turned to leech.

I don’t know why I need you,

or when you fell beyond my reach.

 

Tea in the morning, up

still from the night before,

at an ungodly hour,

a Christmas christening,

a pillow on the floor,

a warm and steaming shower.

 

It’s crazy, the daydreams

I fashion asleep.

 

I don’t know why I love you.

I couldn’t say what good it’s done.

I don’t know why I’m unglued

at the lashing of your tongue.

 

I don’t know why I love you...

or even if I really do.

 

 

Combustible Human

 

Built not well

with such tender cartilage fastened,

made not to last

for more than but a suggestion.

She—say no more than that alone, she—

she, with anything at all preceding...

 

an inexpressible excitement presses its confines.

 

 

Dig In, Friend, Dig In

 

Pop! The dialogue balloon explodes,

like the bubbles in the water bottle

doing the breast stroke.

Doggy paddle soaked carpet’s

wagging tail, with happiness,

delighted to fetch the incoming mail.

And now that the pressure cooker lost

its heat, we simmer on the surface

and prepare to feast on steam,

and sink our teeth into blissfully

seasoned, sweet meat.

 

Pop! The colonel, with a corkscrew stick,

lunges with a bayonet and bludgeons

a cross-stitch; needle pricked skin, scoured

for a reaction, fraction faction fashioned,

and impervious to satisfaction—say?

And now that the flame’s risen, burned the spit,

dwindled into embers, yet increasingly lit, we sit

and grit our teeth about deliciously

seasoned, sweet meat.

 

Am I vile? Am I foul?

Would you shriek or would you howl?

Am I sick? Am I twisted?

Do you wish the dish were listed with recipes?

Friend, are you ready for the best of me?

Well, dig in... dig in.

 

Snap! ...the branches of a gnarled oak;

carved initials in a heart scar the hearth

of a good joke. Nursery rhymed other lines

flash in a dash, Mr. “Oversensitive

-and-Rash” badly overreacts.

And now that the punishment’s fitted the crime,

we close our eyes, wait for the fates to align,

kiss whispered signs, slide tongues ‘cross teeth,

speak intermittently seasoned, sweet meat.

 

Snap! The slaps of a thunderclap crack,

stab the doubled over back, cackle and whack!

Packaged as baggage, left hanging on racks,

silly little me nibbles sweetheart tears like snacks.

And now that the knots of allotment are frayed,

you lick the blade, stick me, and I drip you

a taste of praise; the phrase stains your teeth

with brilliantly seasoned, sweet meat.

 

Am I foul? Am I vile?

Could you leave the scene beguiled?

Am I twisted? Am I sick?

Will you lift the lid, dive in the mix of recipes?

Friend, are you ready for the rest of me?

Well, dig in... dig in.

 

 

You Are The Perk

 

Continental breakfast,

complimentary—room service,

some cider for my spider’s ebb,

more towels, dry cowls,

a box of rocks, intoxicated

companion spread.

 

I plan to stuff you in my pocket

and make a break for the door,

before you notice the housekeeper

rolling her cart across the floor.

 

You are the perk,

and I’m the jerk who’s

stupid enough to want more.

I am the jerk who’s foolish enough

to be given what for.

 

Incremental success,

a book signing, and the stars

misaligning themselves,

supernovas, black holes,

swirling eddies, several

spinning vortexes, spiraling

where I frequently delve.

 

I plan to press between the pages

the sage of your careening meteor,

wrap up the metaphor, store you

in my top right-hand drawer.

 

You are the perk,

and I’m the twerp

you’re avoiding until

you’re quite sure.

I am the worm who is

subservient enough

to be ground into dirt.

 

You are the perk;

you are the pertinent life

I gave my happiness for.

 

 

Scalpel Points & Shotgun Shells

 

If you want someone to

cherish you like cherries jubilee,

if you need someone to

polish you like silver,

if the dance must be romantic,

or you’ll grab a hand and leave,

if you build me up as

just another pillar;

how juvenile can you be?

But if you need someone

to love you, it’s me.

 

I like you well enough to let you go,

or slam your fingers in the door

and tell you “no.”

I am the kind of man who tells it like it is,

be it with scalpel points or sawed off

shotgun shells.

So take that tone with me,

and by the second blink

you’ll find yourself in a war zone.

 

If you’re looking for a mirror

to affirm how fair your skin,

if the surface must have

only one dimension,

if your reaching out is meant

to extend kindness to within,

if you don’t care, just

as long as it’s attention;

how asinine can you be?

But if you need someone

in love with you, it’s me.

 

I like you well enough to slap you in the face,

or take your privileges away, or break a vase

over a bloated, floating ego, deflating your

prestige with scalpel points and shotgun shells.

So make that claim with me,

you’ll find I’ve lined the track with traps

where you’re running your rat race;

how mortified must you be!

But if you need someone specific, just tell me.

 

 

Are You Through?

 

Have your gutters collected

enough rain to bow, love?

Have you pelted this tin roof

hard enough for repairs?

Have you smoothed over your

rough edges with erosion, lover?

May I shower you out of

the mud of the whole affair?

 

And if I ask this time,

will you say you’re mine,

or will you claim that

you may be soon?

It’s just a phase, you say;

well, let me know when

your games are through.

 

Are you through yet,

making me wait to say I love you?

Are you done being childish

and young, and sleeping alone?

Have I suffered long enough with-

out your soft and gentle touch?

May I quit pretending my

heart is made of stone?

 

Are your notebooks and diaries

tired of hearing of loneliness?

Have you found that when I’m not

around, you reach for the phone?

Do the boys you’ve been seeing the

town with know you think of me?

Do they know that we are

one in flesh and bone?

 

And if I ask once more,

will you answer for sure,

or will you push for

a little more room?

As I drive away, I pray to

God I can make it through.

 

Are you through yet,

making me wait to say I love you?

Are you settled yet, enough

to let me show you how I feel?

Have I waited long enough

to prove it hasn’t altered much?

I have to tell you—but with a kiss,

my lips are sealed.

 

Are you through yet,

making me wait to say I love you?

May I resume being consumed

by what you are?

May I focus all my efforts

once again on being

everything I can for you?

We’re so close, and still so far.

Are you through yet?

May I take you in my arms?

 

 

Blessed Headrest

 

Fortunate pillow of feather down,

to be so tightly squeezed

between crossed arms and body,

reciprocating warmth of sped blood

from deep recesses of ventricles,

filling wholly the space unwelcome

between self and another’s bare skin,

following and flowing into the

curves of breasts,

encircled by wound legs,

wrapped delicately as a wedding gift,

meant for the eyes of only one.

Impossible fortune, mass of

huggable cloth and cotton,

lend to me for even a night your standing,

let me lay my head at her neck,

the rest falling where it may.

She may sculpt me into her torso,

and I will bundle her like a blanket.

 

 

Kiss You Where It Hurts

 

No matter now the years behind,

no matter now the heartbeat through the blinds,

no matter now the detour signs,

no matter how far, know how hard I try,

no matter how often splattered,

your fragile heart, so bruised and battered,

no mention of the punch line-blackened eyes;

I now see only blue skies.

 

I’ll kiss you where it hurts.

I’ll kiss you where it hurts.

I’ll kick away the dirt

and kiss you where it hurts.

 

No matter how discontent,

no matter how quickly I pick up your scent,

no matter how foolishly hell-bent,

no matter how relentlessly I must repent,

no matter how violently shaken,

no matter the stray paths you’ve taken,

no mention of your silent and priceless replies;

I foresee no more good byes.

 

I’ll kiss you where it hurts.

I’ll kiss you where it hurts.

I’ll kick away the dirt

and kiss you where it hurts.

 

And in the place of pain and isolation,

I’ll brace a sweeter taste of

praises laced with adulation,

and swirl it with a twirling mix

of pixie sticks and Lik-I-Maid,

sprinkle it with cookie bits,

and cherries dipped in sugar cane.

 

I’ll kiss you where it hurts.

I’ll kiss you where it hurts.

I’ll kick away the dirt

and kiss you where it hurts.

 

No matter how long it takes,

no matter how many head and stomach aches,

no matter how frequently we make mistakes,

no matter how many times my heart breaks,

no matter the cost of keeping you,

no matter what I must do to prove

my love for you—no mention, no

thought of what that statement implies;

I will see that it never dies.

 

I’ll kiss you where it hurts.

I’ll kiss you where it hurts.

I’ll kick away the dirt

and kiss you where it hurts.

 

 

I Did It All For You

 

Ran my finger 'cross the

blade to see the color fade,

poured salt across the wound

now doused in lemonade,

set my own house on fire

to watch it burn,

strung lights to watch the

shadows duck and hide away,

sung a chorus line and dined

outside your window pane,

serenaded blazing wreckage

of the lessons learned...

 

and I did it all for you.

(Now how about that!)

I stretched myself across the sea

and pulled my crooked back.

I snapped my cracking neck

and let the muscles spaz,

hoping you would notice

when you needed someone,

I’d given everything I had.

 

Passed up a couple hundred

thousand sponges soft as stone,

passed out and doubted that the

smelling salts would quell the drone,

cast die and smiled when the

snake eyes glinted and turned,

pulled my blinders off and

stared straight into Mr. Sun,

grimaced with a menacing degree

of pun-drenched cynic’s fun,

swerved off the road into a

ditch stitched with ferns...

 

and I did it all for you.

(What do you think about that?)

I gnawed my fists at the wrists

to free you from my trap.

I sipped a tipsy bit of cyanide

mixed for sewer rats,

hoping you would realize

when you took the time to look,

I’d given everything I had.

 

And this whole glowing ball

of emotion is devotion to you;

you were the muse,

although confusing,

that I used to fuse this feeling into.

This whole mess is for you.

 

Ran my fingers down your

back to snack on gusts and chills,

killed my own free will and

still came up with naught for nil,

thrilled to spill you down the

funnel-shaped chamber of my soul;

every sigh, every exclamation

does your name confess,

every excuse I get, I wander

in your wilderness,

get lost, embossed in frost,

and tossed into a loss of control...

 

and I do it all for you.

(What will we do about that?)

I choose to introduce myself

to overwhelming tact.

You blast it in my face,

I badly over-react, knowing

full well your wicked spells,

yet acknowledging the fact

I’d given everything I had.

 

 

It Will Never Be

 

I’ve been broken. I’ve seen

the best things in life slip away.

I’ve been choking on every

word you ever made me say.

 

All I ever wanted—

watched it drift out to sea,

followed changing tides in hopes

it’d bring you back to me.

But I’m standing at the shoreline

with nothing but the breeze;

all I wanted now will never be.

 

It will never be.

It will never be.

 

Say, say something;

you block the hallway like

there’s something on your mind.

Say, say, say, say you need me;

but neither one will ever cross that line.

 

We share that silent tie that

binds a millstone to our necks;

the icebergs of our hearts get

chipped away with every wreck.

The lifeboat sits empty

just outside our reach;

all I wanted now will never be.

 

It will never be.

It will never be.

 

 

The Only One

 

You stab me in the heart

with the sharp parts of your own.

You pick me apart,

the archer to flesh and bone.

With a flick of your wrist,

snap your fingers and I’m undone;

while everyone tries to slay me,

you’re the only one.

 

You keep spinning your web

into elaborate designs;

I kick myself in the head

a thousand times.

‘Cause I have waited so long

for someone like you to come;

everyone tries to sway me,

but you’re the only one.

 

While I was looking away,

you broke in and made yourself at home;

there’s someone in the pillow in my bed,

where I’d been sleeping alone.

And I’m crazy, and open for you baby,

put your phaser on stun;

staple me in shapes across your heart,

that I’m the only one.

 

 

Why Do I Cry?

 

Why

do I cry?

There is no reason.

You are not married to my high school bully.

You have not been removed from my life

in any way.

You certainly are not without

a surge of activity

in your veins.

But I glance over the spread out

sheet of pictures on my lap,

and I cry. And why?

For no other reason

than how

immeasurably

I love you.

 

 

I Wouldn’t Be Desperate If It Wasn’t For You

 

I can understand why you’ve been running;

I hear your footsteps a million miles away.

You pad along on tiptoes and on eggshells,

you whisper in the windless ocean spray.

 

Who ever thought that it would come to this?

I never wanted to go through this.

 

I wouldn’t be desperate if it wasn’t for you.

I wouldn’t be desperate if it wasn’t for you.

 

Face after face goes by like seasons;

I only make out one in ten.

I never give them any reasons

why I can never fall in love again.

 

I never thought you’d get so deeply in;

why did I let you underneath my skin?

 

I wouldn’t be desperate if it wasn’t for you.

I wouldn’t be desperate if it wasn’t for you.

 

I wouldn’t be desperate if it didn’t mean

that you might someday come back to me,

but I know that’s unlikely as a summer snow.

 

I can understand why you’ve been running;

just swear you’re coming back someday.

I cannot live without your loving;

I’ll wait as long as it takes.

 

Who ever thought I’d be reduced to this?

I never wanted to get used to this.

 

I wouldn’t be desperate if it wasn’t for you.

I wouldn’t be desperate if it wasn’t for you.

 

 

As Long As We Both Shall Live

 

I’d been broken and the pieces scattered,

my cheeks were soft with tears,

my heart was tattered.

You cupped up your soul to hold me

all that you could give;

I’ll let every drop soak in,

as long as we both shall live.

 

I was defeated and completely wasted,

I knew just how others’ sweetness tasted.

You wrung out my tears

and dressed the wounds across my skin;

every scar belongs to you,

as long as we both shall live.

 

As long as there is longing in my breathing,

as long as loving you keeps this heart beating,

as long as there is life to offer,

you’ll get all there is,

‘til all the sands of time are sifted,

as long as we both shall live.

 

I’d been cut off, left miserable and shaken,

all I had had already been taken.

You cut yourself open

and I hid myself within,

now we’re one united flesh,

as long as we both shall live.

 

 

You’ve Had Me Committed

 

I once knew the luckiest man alive.

at the age of thirty-two,

he fell in a manhole and died.

What I wouldn’t give to be

in his size twelve shoes,

just a side note, a sound byte,

a neighbor on the ten o’clock news.

I’m so desperate for you;

you’ve had me committed.

 

The train is coming

and we stick like pennies to the rail.

A faucet is running over

bottles in my second story jail.

There are scowls on the

painted on faces of clowns

as I dangle from the wire you walk;

I’ve been gathering so many

random things to tell you that

my lungs are too swollen to talk.

I’m so mad about you;

you’ve had me committed.

 

I’m not ashamed of the things

I’ve done in the name of love;

every ink blot or blood drop

is a picture of my turtledove,

and no prescription or miracle cure

could slow my heart’s repetitious beating;

the men in white turn pink in the face

when I elaborate on what I’m thinking.

I’m so obsessed with you;

you’ve had me committed.

 

And suddenly voices that never spoke to me

whisper absurdly audible suggestions

that drive me to lunacy.

And suddenly this insane level of

commitment forces a smile in the stomachs

of the butterflies residing in the aspirin-

coated tummy of the gentleman,

emotionally unfit to stand trial.

I’m so crazy over you;

you’ve had me committed.

 

I once knew the most

beautiful woman alive—

I still do; she swore she'd

marry me when we’re sixty-five.

What I wouldn’t give

to be sixty-four.

But then I’d probably

fall into a manhole, and she

wouldn’t be obliged anymore.

I’m so sick with longing;

you’ve had me committed.

 

 

Dreams Are Not Worth Sleeping Through Without You

 

Tonight it must suffice

to take my own well known advice,

and cling to bundled blankets,

and pretend they’re you.

I suppose I’ll be all right

to sleep alone another night,

if I keep dreaming of the things

we mean to do.

 

Here I lie with sleeping pills,

sips of wine, and lukewarm milk,

anything they say may get me through.

Drape the sudden, too-bright moon;

I know you say you’ll be back soon,

but dreams are not worth

sleeping through without you.

 

So hurry, lover, come to me,

in stardust covered comet sheets,

embed your blessed kisses in my hold.

I will treasure every precious sigh,

pull you closer to my side,

breathe your presence,

reverently consoled.

 

Here I wait in anxious state,

intensely pine to consummate,

pray for our salvation, one as two.

Speed the trip; I long and yearn

for you to hasten your return;

for dreams are not worth

sleeping through without you.

 

Dreams are not worth sleeping

through without you.

 

 

That Kiss Of Yours

 

I’ve been hanging on to that kiss you gave me

—that night that stands out before

a cosmos of others, shining like seventeen

supernovas, far more luminous than

life-sustaining effervescence;

I keep it in a box in my closet,

with bottles of hair and perfume,

cupcake decorations, pins and other nic-knacks.

I keep it pressed between pages of an old journal,

occasionally, when I feel sad, bringing it out,

outlining the imprint of your heavenly lips

with my fingers.

It marks the pages between

the chapter on loving

and the one on losing,

firmly embedded in both, prevailing in neither.

Sometimes I hold it again to my lips

and try to taste the familiar breath of your youth,

sometimes able to do so.

But rarely is the absence of your mouth

unmet with a string of excited yesterdays,

dangling like a spider web,

face height from the branch of a tree

with carved initials around the scarred trunk,

waiting to wind itself around the acute senses

of a lovesick heart.

I’ve been saving that kiss you gave me

for centuries, waiting for just the right moment

to sneak it back to the warm moisture

on your teeth, to return it to its rightful place

as the sweet connection between

your soul and mine.

It is, after all, your kiss;

I only borrowed it,

and I intend to give it back.

 

 

That Blasted Kiss

 

I saw you shatter like a wine glass

when I dripped my melting heart

over the ice cube of your soul.

A shard lodged itself between my neck and head,

the blood tickled warmly at my throat.

Then I looked at your face and I realized

I was not prepared for this,

the perfect bliss of that blasted kiss.

 

I saw you dripping like a candle

when you burned your fingers

trying to light the lantern in your chest.

I sealed in wax the scroll of my emotions;

you wore the ring while the jewelry set.

Then I took your hand and I realized

I was not prepared for this,

the perfect bliss of that blasted kiss.

 

You lapped at all the traces of grace

to crash in waves against the crags

of your rough, unsculpted mass.

I laughed with considerable effort

to excuse my tremendous shaking,

paint my brave, feigned countenance in tact.

Then I looked in your eyes and I realized

I was not prepared for this,

the perfect bliss of that blasted kiss.

 

 

The Spell Of You

 

What I wouldn’t give to

be in yours arms again,

what I wouldn’t do to tie my

heartstrings to the things of you,

what I wouldn’t fight to win the

right to hold you as I sleep tonight,

what I wouldn’t lose in hopes

to get back half the life I knew,

but seasons change and people fade.

 

I just wish I would have told you

how urgently I needed you;

I only hope you understood that

what I said was only half the truth.

A lifetime’s worth of poetry

could not begin to prove the depth

I fell under the spell of you.

 

What I wouldn’t say to explain

how it hurt when you went away,

what I wouldn’t write to reclaim

your face in the candlelight,

what I wouldn’t pray to hear

some word of where you are today,

what I wouldn’t cry to spend a

few more moments by your side,

but years pass; it doesn’t last.

 

I just wish I would have told you

how desperately I cared for you;

I only hope you understood that

everything within me came unglued.

A lifetime’s worth of poetry

could not begin to soothe the hollow

shell under the spell of you.

 

And if Jesus came tomorrow,

said “I’m here to bring you home,”

I’d have to say, “I’d like to go,

but not if I’m alone.”

I linger in the photographs

of ancient smiles and laughs;

I wonder if you think of me,

and wish that you’d come back.

But everything’s so different....

 

What I wouldn’t leave if

you ever returned to me,

what I wouldn’t sacrifice to once

more have your presence in my life,

what I wouldn’t try to gaze

once more into your eyes,

I wouldn’t think twice before

leaving all this happiness behind,

but friendships end and hearts mend.

 

I just wish I would have told you

how wonderfully I ached for you,

I only hope it was obvious just how

many layers you melted through.

A lifetime’s worth of poetry...

I hardly see the use; it cannot

quell the mystic spell of you.

 

 

All Over

 

At work early on a Friday morn’,

after speaking to you the night before,

simmer steam from Whitman’s legacy,

tea leaves swirl like summer storms;

 

and it’s so amusing,

and it’s so confusing,

and I’m so abusive,

and it’s all so elusive.

 

Everywhere I look I see

suggestions of your laugh,

everywhere I swear I see your face,

my heart is dashed to pieces, all,

all over you.

 

Silence winds its way through city streets,

waits at red-lights to the side;

on the rooftops, empty cars recline,

I take a phone call and decide

 

that it’s so unnerving,

and I’m so undeserving,

and it’s all so fruitless, and

it’s all so fucking useless.

 

Everywhere I go, I go alone and never leave,

everyone I meet, it seems, is dreaming

dreams I dream of leaving all,

all over you.

 

 

© 1997, 2001 by Ryan Christian Hedegard