it begins...

on a february evening before the millennium

YOU exploded before me
blinding (further?) my
night-accustomed eyes

watching and hearing you for the first time

it was like stepping into the cold waters of a river in another country
visited for the first time, on the first day, 
stepping, and the ice-air numbed my feet,
shocked my senses, i thought i saw water fairies flitting in between the currents
stepping, and before i could gauge the river’s depth i began to drown
i froze in panic, my arms stupidly flailing around
i thought to scream for help but 
i have not yet learned to speak the language that you can hear

the water fairies gently nudged me with their fairy fins
or so i thought. they weren’t real, were they?
i cannot die this way, seeing Things i am not supposed to see
i have not even said hello. much less touched your hand
and it’s too late because my lungs were already half-filled with water
and i think my fingers had frozen dead
the river carried my raging body towards the steep fall...

i fell, my soul following closely behind, wanting to die, wanting to live,
water filled my mouth, my eyes, my wide-open hands
and the rushing sounded like 
loud muffled murmurings of poems written for lost loves
i wanted to shout, i’m here, find me
i fell to the bottom, and the endless falling river kept me down
and all became silent, and the water fairies began to lull me to sleep
hushing me, with lullabies about loves that never even began.

on the second day

already i am beginning to forget what you look like
and instead i remember other Things,

and this is how i create my gods:
with words from songs,
and pieces of poems,
and characters from movies,
from remembered book passages,
and quotations from old bibles,
and overheard prayers,
from fairy tales and legends,
and nightmares,
and the lies our parents told 
about the universe and about life and love.

later i will cast this soul-handmade Dream around you,
and i will crown you with stars that will sometimes prick like thorns,
and i will light candles to accentuate your shadows,

and i will pattern my life so that i will be pleasing,
and i will weave my soul threads around you,
and i will make you bless me,

and you will make me your queen.

falling

i need to watch this closely
carefully
how the fever creeps in
and envelops each unsuspecting cell in my body
and hints of nausea begin to hint at other things

how this dis-ease eats up
my deprived flesh, my drying-up skin
i am given bitter medicines that taste 
suspiciously of truth
and they all say it’s for the better

i am desperate enough
to experiment, i have consulted
witches and mad-women,
i have swallowed their potions 
that made me more insane

sadly, i was brought up
to think that euthanasia is a sin

two witches

the old-souled one
held the hands
of the child-souled other 

the circle has been
carefully cast,
the sigils carefully drawn

the candle flames
trembled like the 
child-souled’s breath

her heart was in her throat
and she was almost ready
to throw it up

the old-souled calmly
felt around the edges
of her being

there, her eyes said
and she held out
a frayed soul-bond

the old-souled said:
“ i never had much need
for this...”

then she thrust the soul-bond
through the inner sacred space
of the child-souled one

who caught her breath
as the old-souled groped
for anchor

then the hand was withdrawn
she said:  “he will be
bound to you now.”

the next day,
the child-souled sat by the phone
and waited.

second time seeing you

there are sometimes pools of utter calm
sometimes i chance upon them and 
i am momentarily startled by the sudden absence
of this tempest wrecking my soul.
but mostly there would be the times 
of helplessly standing against the onslaught
of this unnamable longing
simply afraid and bewildered

contemplating you

fear drums in me
a low, muffled rhythm
disguised between
my own heartbeats
i choke on it sometimes
it makes me sputter
in the middle of brave words
shaped to conjure
at least shadows of miracles

this fascination

condemns me to a period of longing
during which rest is impossible
until a certain satisfaction is gained
like touching your face for instance
or lingeringly holding your hand
or maybe laying a fingertip on your lips
even a quick kiss would probably suffice
until a new day brings on a new hunger
like wanting to see you smile
or hearing you say my name

most of the time i get by with none
of these things 
i have learned to scavenge for scraps
like thoughts of you walking on paths i have traveled 
or perhaps visiting a place i have been
and i wish enough traces of me would have lingered
to settle upon you, tiny motes of dust 
each holding a seed of my affection
maybe a stray thought could insinuate itself 
and make you look up and around

at times i smile at these images
and then scold myself for not being there.
no matter, we are fated to meet again
the gods will not have contrived to show you to me
if they could not afterwards taunt me 
with brief, barely-there encounters that hint at
almost anything and also nothing
perhaps we will even be friends
and then this fascination will be cursed to scratch 
against newfound constraints.

it begins i

it grows ii

it rages iii

it breaks iv

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