she
left me
IV
(this is my corner
)
Something quiet turned over in the darkness, a mouse (no not a sniffing mouse) in the way shadows have mixed with bands of diluted whiteness over sheet and fall and floorboard. Looking outside, I could make out part of the moon. It waved to me. I wondered if it were made of Brie. A cheesy moon: oddly distinguished. Calamity held hands in me and reaching out to (quiet) some tangled fold in me, hurting the hands to hold it.
For a while I thought of writing poetry, but grew frustrated with myself. All I ever think about is poetry; thus, there I have, I am and am not a poet. It doesn't leave any room for me, especially because my poetry can't belong to anyone else, it isn't poetry at all.
From
here to
there
it flounces, baroque like Voltaire throwing (well meaning) hypocrisy at the very rich. I meant this to be peaceful, but I don't have what it takes for peace: coming back, maybe that's what's truly inhuman in me, I am.
::::::::::::::::::::
I thought for things to be right, I really did need to meet her here. My strangulated nightingale fantasy, altogether hopeless dream. I am. The strains of citizenship run through me, in who I am, what I do, the places I go, all I could ever hope be; drawing in reluctance from a whole whirlpool of stagnant resources, the world around me, the liberal artistic white male. I disgust myself.
As in all things, she is a part of me: separate. In all my life, I've encountered nothing not recollected; hearkening back to canonical readings of Plato. I am no stranger to trees, unsurprised by buildings, accustomed to bursts of unreality. I've been to the center of the universe many times, and I see in both directions. In(out)side myself, a prism of humanity. One eye. Two shadows.
If things were right I would meet her here, or she would be here already. Supine moonlight graciously flowing, the cool darkness of her lips hinting at mysterious varieties of expression; taking a step forward, back. I see in her many things; waxy stretches dark dark color, pale skin and secret body. If things were right, she would be here.
::::::::::::::::::::
The disseminated soul drifts freely through space, swirling past planets and stars. The vacuum is strangely relaxing. The moon is actually made of old, old stones.
::::::::::::::::::::
"Hello."
"Hello."
"I thought you would come."
"I have."
"It wouldn't be right," I said, "if you hadn't." "Yeah," she said. "I know."
::::::::::::::::::::
She tasted
like softness and moonlight: like purified water, more things than one. It isn't
so hard to imagine, though really I find the less in touch I get with the world, the
more trouble
I have comprehending it: analogous, it is, this to that, I to her, this to being. We were in a room.
It had doors and windows. Moonlight flooded from the windows. There was
a bed. The walls were some gray plaster, I didn't care. There was a carpet. I wasn't
alone. Contradicting forces layered polarity. I was here and I was really here. For the
first time in so long, whatever, with a realization that I am, in relevance to time and
place, the compound that is me, in tune. She was here with me, she was. This was
the forth time I'd seen her, ripping holes in sensible arrangement. And I saw the world from many angles: from all goddamn angles,
sides, up, front and back,
nineteen dimensions, physical, metaphysical,
outside
myself, inside, through the lens of a camera, if that wasn't enough,
realization
of separation.
I had
no shadow.
No.
I had an infinite
# of shadows, all around, defying the light, just like her.
At odds, we blocked
out patterns in the light, coalescent to whatever form of togetherness.
::::::::::::::::::::
"Do you really have to go?" I asked.
She shook her head and I held her to me. Formless, shapeless, in being. I kissed her and told her maybe somewhere in me, if I was capable of love, that I felt it. The night unmasked itself to us, for the sense of poetry she invoked, or her certain things could be certain ways. Not the kind I care to understand. I held her and she reminded me of herself, of her figure in dreams. Our time together was nothing but a chronicle of breathing: body life and breath, delirious strivings. In her own way, she gave meaning to a whole history of silent voices, in me, in me: as though we had been here before,
and someday soon,
we would be here again.
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