Affair

I’m mad for you. My heart is an open wound, my body aches for you. I’m desperate for you, for all of you. I say nothing, tell no one. But inside I’m screaming your name. Be still, illicit desires. Smile tightly, go about my business. Make food, make love, make a home, make a family. 

 

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Every step a drum roll, counting the endless beats until I can be with you again. You are the last thing on my mind before I fall into the great, black void. You are the first thing I think of when waking, and each and every moment in between. The witching hour at three or four, when the world is thick with dreams, the darkness suffocating and oppressive, moments before dawn suffuses the night with a bleak grey. I stir out of sleep, toss restlessly, hand under the pillow, move my body closer to the warmth of his skin. I close my eyes, imagine running my fingers down your neck. Caressing you. Opening my lips to breathe you in, the sweet, warm, earthy scent of you. 

 

I’m driven mad by you. You’ve bewitched me, for how else to explain the intensity of my craving? I imagine that I love you – though to love another is to begin the slow, painful descent into madness. But what else to call this attraction? A kindred spirit – you alone are capable of accepting the exquisite pain and lonely angst of my interminable struggle to be understood. Give, take; take, give. Take. Take. Take.

 

I bite my lip, think for the thousandth time of you, only you. Devise devious plans, imagine ways to be with you. Fantasies of clandestine meetings in anonymous hotel rooms; whispered confessions of love and lust in dirty, garrulous corners. I would lie in a heartbeat to be with you, even when you leave me feeling weak, worn, drained of the power of conversation and balance. I dream of sinking into the recesses of a warm and faded creaking leather sofa, with you and only you for company. 

 

You don’t judge, nor tell me I am being self-indulgent. You may be damaged, incapable of love, but you do a decent approximation of it. Don’t think I can’t see it, can’t feel it. Don’t think I don’t know of the implicit bond, the rubber band drawing and repelling us together. Symbiosis. Co-dependence. We dance an endless  dance of love, lust and disgust. We show just a little of what we’re feeling to the outside world, but careful, careful. Not too much. Can’t let them figure us out.

 

You can’t say it, only feel it. You have no words, no tongue with which to speak it. I’ll talk for both of us. As I pour myself another drink of you, my love. 

 

Cubicle

My phone buzzed in my bag. Pressing the button, I smiled as I saw who it was from, and my heart gave an involuntary flip in my chest. But with the excitement came an immediate rush of pain and guilt. I shouldn’t be feeling this way.

“Having fun?” the message read.

“Yes! It’s amazing. Wish you were here,” I tapped out quickly, noticing absently as I did so that my nails looked terrible. I really should’ve made the effort to paint them before coming out somewhere so high profile, so ‘haute couture’. At this, a party hosted by the hottest rapper of recent times, image wasn’t just everything – it was essential. And whether or not you were ‘polished’ was in many ways irrelevant, for there was plenty of careful chaos around. The crucial point was intent.

My finger lingered on the ‘wish you were here’ – who knew that four words, blunt text, not a double syllable between them, could hold so much unspoken meaning? Even through my alcohol infused haze, I knew they were dangerous. I decided. Delete.

‘You’d love it,’ I wrote instead, then quickly pressed ‘send’ before I could change my mind. It was too easy to flirt, too easy to be inappropriate, at 11pm, after a few drinks, in the anonymous sanctity of a party. There were no close friends here, no husbands, no children. There was just promise, drink, drugs and sex. A lot of sex. Even if, in my case, the sex was on the other end of the phone, far away in a different postcode. Far, far away from home, and the sleeping figure of my life and loves.

The buzzing of my phone startled me again. Too quick, I thought, with another flash of guilty excitement. He wants this game too.

“Jealous. Pic?” the message read. I dithered, aware that I’d need to relinquish the safety of the cubicle soon or risk being rescued. My friends were probably starting to wonder where I was.

I tapped a few keys, bringing up the photo gallery, biting my lip as I pondered what to send. The one of me, bending towards the camera, pouting lasciviously? That was a real MySpace shot, that one. Too much. You could practically see my tits. I’d struggle to pass that off as platonic, no matter who the recipient. Especially him.

I settled on a group shot, me with three others, all gurning and flashing white teeth for the camera. It was light, playful. It could hardly be construed as too forward. Yes. That was safe. I attached it to a new message, typed a caption: ‘Me with lots of ladies. Lucky!’ Sent.

I stuffed my phone in the inside pocket of my bag, all too aware that I’d be compelled to keep checking for a response. I flushed, snapped back the lock, smiled coolly at the waiting queue of people. They were all too out of it to register how long I’d taken anyway. I washed my hands quickly and checked the mirror for signs of sweat or guilt. I was relieved to note that my face was still a mask, hiding the panicked transgression of my heart.

“We write to taste life twice…

 

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”

― Anaïs Nin

 

Sorry

I want to say sorry, to him

My heart has no more wetness, no tears, only stone

Where there was once love, forgiveness, time and care

Now there is only pain and resentment.

And I want to say sorry, to her

A friend, once, now lost forever

Spent like a cheap coin before I knew how precious she was.

And I want to say sorry, to you

You can’t return my desires

Needs not met, passion’s fury thwarted.

And I want to say sorry, to me

I’ve never treated myself

The way I deserve to be treated.

“You must stay drunk on writing…

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Inspirational women

There are so many brave, interesting and inspirational women taking time out of busy working lives, looking after children, making a house a home; being the carer, the friend, the confidante, the mother, the supporter. Many of them no doubt scream silently every day about their needs, their desires – but no-one listens. To all those brave and wonderful women, I think you’re amazing.

“Lock up your libraries…

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”
― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

A post-it Note

sexinthekitchensink

If I post it onto

my blog

than share it with You-

it’s a lot like

seeping, sharing, dirty wet secrets

onto the internet.

 

If I do not share,

and choose instead,

to mold it, shape it, and sculpt it-

AND then I –

throw the poem headfirst into

an yet unwritten manuscript.

 

Then that is sharing too but

of a different sort.

-more selective

-more random

 

the poem itself becomes

much harder to notice-

the reader must do more work…

 

to dislocate a piece,

of free-verse and lodge it-

somewhere else, like a bone out of place,

the poem piece

needs a doctor

to whack it back

to wherever it truly belongs.

 

I do not know where-

I just write them all down,

that’s all i can do.

They fly out of my hands

landing like little butterflies

here and there,

without a care.

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Untold stories

In the dark of night

A thousand untold stories

Haunt me in my dreams

“There is no greater agony…

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
― Maya Angelou