There was a
time
When butter
made me smile.
Its scent
lingered,
Faintly on my
fingers,
As I plodded
through the day.
But then I
found you
More fragrant
than butter,
More fragrant
than flowers.
Such power
That I
staggered.
But I did not
fall.
No, I never fell.
Or is it a lie
I tell?
To put myself to sleep,
And to stem the tears that I weep.
Laughter costs
us nothing,
You said.
But tears are
dearly paid for,
I know.
These tears
have taken
My grief far
away
To a place
where they will not bother me ever again.
Or so I
thought.
For I am
pregnant with grief
–and each one
that leaves
Is replaced
again.
I am no
Heracles
Fighting the
Hydra.
For these
griefs are my own, my children.
I am angry with
you because you do not love me like how I love you. You spend time with me when
you want to with no care for my time. And though I am friend to you, I don’t
know where I stand in your life. I feel a tightness around my chest (my heart
is silent).
I like the
taste and smell of butter. Now there is no pleasure in it. I can find none,
none at all.
I am more than
a friend and less than a lover. When you ask me to do something I feel pleased.
I feel pleased because it is you.
I feel a thrill
run down my spine when you call my name. And I always run the last few steps to
your house.
Something is
scraping my head.
Is it a claw?
No, that is
false.
Is it a rake?
That cannot be
–it is in the
garden.
Is it a spoon?
No, it has not
left the plate.
It is pain.
The monster
that
Cannot talk,
Cannot sing
And cannot rejoice
In the sun.
It tells me
I was never
happy.
I am ready to
believe
That is true.
I must go now,
It is come
again.
I get angry
with you sometimes, but I am always angry at myself. People are fond of saying “loving
the impossible”. They forget that love is imagined beyond the possible which is
the world as it already is. I have loved in vain, maybe even foolishly, but I
have not loved impossibly. My anger comes from this tenuous and fragile hope.
When you stand
on the beach, where the surf breaks on the shore, the tide pulls the sand away
from under your feet and you feel like you stand upon a branch though you can
see the ground all around you.
That is how
fragile my hope is. But my love, why, my love is like standing at the edge of
the sea breathing in all its beauty, majesty and force through my nose, my
eyes, my skin, my tongue and my ears. The roar of the sea echoes the roar of my
heart. The pull of the water is the strength of my love. The salt of the
sea-spray is a mark of how ordinary my love is.