if you think you are as fragile as glass
remember this:
I’m not afraid of your sharp edges.
in fact –
each time you break, I will place your pieces in my pocket
and when all that is left
is sand
I will gather you in my hand and gently send you across the world
until you are a desert, and I a cool wind
and we can sleep beneath the stars
Let’s suppose someone has mastered the nuances of human behavior. They’ve spent the better part of four decades watching how people interact, studied their motivations in the face of ambition and desire, learned when instinct outweighs consciousness, examined the patterns that lead to heartbreak and betrayal. Let us say that at first this study was done to learn the art of seduction but later was simply a tool for living a better, happier, life.
Let’s suppose all of this is true.
There remains one other singular fact:
No matter how great their understanding, it is arrogance itself to believe they are not bound by the same motivations, same instincts, and same patterns.
And being arrogant is about as human as it gets.
Vulnerability.
Insecurity.
I know these things.
I also know you.
I know the flutter of your heartbeat under my thumb when my hand is wrapped around your throat.
I know your scent when my lips brush the back of your thighs as you are bent over my desk.
I know the line of hunger with you; when my own desire wars with the space I place to stay in control. I know your surrender tests it. Your caught breath presses against it. And your bared skin, brightened red from my hand or blushing with need, almost always breaks it.
I have faith in you.
But if you are unsure. Have faith in me.
I need you to find your feet.
And then find your knees.
She wrote:
You paint with words.
The problem is relationships have the everyday stuff…who takes out the trash. Someone forgets to pick up the dry cleaning.
The dog needs walking. The kids are sick.
Nothing can be like what you paint all the time. It’s unrealistic.
—
You are absolutely correct; the world drawn by my words is ephemeral.
It can’t be sustained.
But it’s not meant to.
I write of moments. If life is a journey, these moments are the postcards.
They are our sharpest memories. The ones we remember best.
Though a little frightened, she let him have his way, and the reckless, shameless sensuality shook her to her foundations, stripped her to the very last, and made a different woman of her. It was not really love. It was not voluptuousness. It was sensuality sharp and searing as fire, burning the soul to tinder.
Burning out the shames, the deepest, oldest shames, in the most secret places. It cost her an effort to let him have his way and his will of her. She had to be a passive, consenting thing, like a slave, a physical slave. Yet the passion licked round her, consuming, and when the sensual flame of it pressed through her bowels and breast, she really thought she was dying; yet a poignant, marvelous death.
D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover
I shall either find a way or make one.
It took just under twenty years between decision and ink.
The words are a way of life for me: most everything is possible so long as you are willing to bear the cost.
I live a balanced life, and this is one reason for it. I almost always weigh the price of my actions against the reward.
Almost.
There are times where I act without thinking; when hunger overrides sense.
For a long time the metaphor of the wolf was merely a literary tact. But in the last five years I have come to have a better understanding of myself.
And this much is true: I harbor a wolf within my heart.
This is what I remember.
You, pinned to the wall, hand at your throat, hand in your hair.
Neck, exposed. Pulse beneath my lips.
Bracing you against the wall; an unsnapping, hands at your shirt – over your head.
Bared skin. I almost regret the hunger that followed. I did not spare the moment to memorize the sight.
Your nipple, caught between my teeth. Feeling it harden. Throb.
You were a craving. I named your curves with bared teeth and unrelenting intent.
It’s not that I feel more dangerous.
It’s that I feel more sure.
Perhaps it is because NE is becoming confident in her physical self again.
Perhaps it is because SB is remembering how to live with sharp edges.
Perhaps it is because I miss supplication; not as a demanding need, but as a missing piece. A lost glove found.
It is the difference between listening to music. And feeling it.
no, she said.
peace is not stasis
or silence
it is not an absence of experience
it is an agreement the heart makes
to have, without greed.
to love, without bounds
to be, without fear
I find I go through life
with either
great patience
or great desperation
I sometimes wait.
content to watch the shadows
stretch and retreat
beneath my window
and sometimes
I am overwhelmed by a great need
to move.
or experience a hunger
like Cronus had for his children.
I do not see the sense of walking
when I can run towards the sun
or stand still
and let the world
come to me.