Love is like quicksand,
it is inevitable and deathly strong.
The sheer thought of having to climb out
terrifies even the noblest of heart.

You hope to stay sinking in it forever,
Reveling in it as it covers your head,
invading your lungs,
drowning you in it’s pervasiveness.

I’ve lived in denial,
thinking that my soft-spoken manner,
my compliments,
my poetry,
my absolute devotion and attention,
my utter lack of typical asshole attitude,
my disdain for “manliness,”
my body even,
would be enough to tame her.

She tells me that she can’t keep that promise to me,
that temptation will win her over.
It’s a promise many never need to make,
one I shouldn’t have had to extract.

In the end, how do you argue with someone
who chooses the mere hint of temptation,
who chooses the slightest chance of another fuck,
who chooses any other possible man in the world but you?

The old adage goes, once a cheat, always a cheat.
I was naïve to think I was enough to change that.
It takes two to make this dance work.
Alas, we never got to dance.

At times the way is well-trodden,
easy going, wide enough to drive a bus on,
everyone’s been this way before.
The path is trampled down ahead of you,
the trail clearly marks
with sign posts and
debris of past travelers.

But every so often you veer from
the beaten path.
The trail is no longer easily found.

Few, if any, have travelled this way.

Suddenly you find yourself at the
cliff’s edge.
Ahead of you is nothing but empty
space.
The sheer rock wall is to your back,
a narrow band of stone is all that
separates you from the abyss.

Do you continue on?

Or do you jump?

broken.
I was complete, I was healed.
I had found and taken refuge in you.
Now I lie useless and broken,
easily discarded in the gutter.

shaken.
You’ve rocked me to the very core of my soul.
You’ve taken everything I hold dear,
ripped it from my heart,
laid it bare for all to see.

One would think I’d recognize
your deceitful face by now.
I’ve seen you in all your duplicitous forms,
I’ve seen you naked and bare.
But how can I recognize you,
when what you prey on is the
thing that makes me, me?
trust.

You’ve ruined me, as so many
others before you.
You’ve crushed me, again.

This is the way
young couples lay in the
black and white movies
her mother calls romantic.
How could she know those couples
were usually on the verge of
breaking up, not fumbling
towards a relationship?

She took an interest in me,
awkward legs and gangly arms,
before I even knew girls
could be more than playmates.

She props herself upon an elbow
reaches across and brushes
the hair from my eyes.
Answering my inquisitive look she says,
“That’s what the girl does in the movies.”
I stare at the pale, patterned ceiling and
ask her what happens after that.

The stark white of the ceiling abruptly
frames her summer tanned face
as she leans over me.
Her sun-bleached hair envelops
my face as she brings her
petite, chapped mouth to mine.
Her lips scratch like tree bark,
and as she presses them to mine,
her eyes are closed
as if this is a ritual not to be witnessed.
Chastised by her simple reverence,
I concentrate on her lips,
trying to recollect every kiss
I’ve ever witnessed.

Her dryness turns soft and wet on my lips,
and before I can react, her tongue is
prying apart my tightly clenched lips.
Her tongue slides into my mouth as I gasp
and her eyes open in mutual astonishment.
To cover our embarrassment,
I ask her what comes next.

“The man always tells the woman he loves her.”
There is a pause as I contemplate the
never-ending pattern on the roof of this chapel.

She asks me if I love her.
I know nothing of love,
so I follow the script.
Maybe this is love.
“I love you.”
I try to think what a
leading man would say next.
I settle for, “with my whole heart.”

She grins down at me,
her deepest hopes and dreams realized
in those seven simple words.

“Now the man asks the woman to marry him”
she says without prompting.
Again, what do I know of marriage?

“Will you marry me?”
I wait for her reply.
I ask her is she’s going to answer me.
Her smile falters and she says she doesn’t know,
she’s never seen that part of the movie.

For I do not have the exquisite luxury of that
tactile feedback I so desire with you.
My hand cannot absently stray to yours,
fingers running up your arm,
senses aflame.

As a historian sifts through the past,
so do I, paging through picture books,
reading snippets of conversations part,
enjoying the often tinny sound of a recorded voice,
constructing a wanted, yet false set of presumably shared memories.

My view of you is simply two-dimensional,
but my imagination takes hold.
In my mind’s eye you are fluid and wave-like,
passing gently over me and through me like a spirit
leaving traces… touches… fingerprints on my soul.

I want to worship at the
temple that is your body,
with my gifts of a kiss and
my offering of a touch laid at your feet.
My sacrifice to you.

My goddess.

1 French – I dream with my eyes open.