Love Letter to a Poet

The Guardian, Centurion, the Gestapo of my heart. She inspects all, she watches all, and rarely allows anyone to tread across the front lawn of my Heart's Home. Her ego is slightly bruised because you snuck in when she was digging thru her purse for that ever elusive cigarette lighter.

My Heart sits in her lovely home waiting, knowing there is someone out there capable of touching her soul. Someone not afraid to dive into her world head first, undeterred, un-intimidated.

She hides scars, defects, the ugly parts, in a closet at the back of the laundry room. That dark cold room where you usually keep ancient linens and last year’s Christmas napkins. The people who come in and out of this home are sorely disappointed when they find this room, as though it were placed there conspiratorially and deceptively by The Gestapo of My Heart. It is always there, you pass it every time you go into the Laundry Room, which is often in a home like this one. Why would it be necessary to point out the obvious? My heart has better things to ponder, like how to replicate the brown of your eyes into a marvelous and lustrous paint, and what could she use that paint on?

She has no use for telling you that there is a small but significant twist to the Laundry Room Door, because you already know the trick to opening the door carefully, and it would only insult your intelligence and bruise your ego. Besides which she wants to know what you think about when you are pondering pansies. (The flowers not the weaklings.) She's far too busy remembering the time she listened to you breathe in the pre-dawn hours of a misty morning in Spring.

It scares me that my heart actually considers examining these things about you. The Guardian is frantically pacing the perimeter, chain smoking and wringing hands. These emotions float by, and I know from experience that you will vanish into the abyss just as miraculously as you surfaced.

Twice I have loved unconditionally, and twice I was rejected. Twice I gave up my self in the name of financial security and twice I walked away in search of soul nourishment.

Ahead of All Parting. That's the name of my favorite works on Rilke. I wonder sometimes if anyone reading that title can appreciate what it really means, what it could mean contextually. I have stayed well ahead of all my partings. I've been the rejecter before being rejected.   I've strived to no avail to be - to live up to the image he has of me, he had of me, they want of me. I have learned that remaining true to my heart, my soul, my self, always results in rejection.

I simply will not give up me to be loved by you. And so I stay ahead of the parting. We forever sit on the front porch, you forever sit on the front porch, never entering even the living room.

It has officially taken me 2 and one quarter hours to write this. How you make me struggle. How the Centurion baits me with distractions, tossing a lyric here, an image there. Any thing to stop the words from bleeding out of my mind.

The unconscious things I do ..... the subconscious decisions I make ...... all designed to steer you gently away from this house, this porch, this woman ..... are completely and utterly lost, because you silently step over them or around them. You made eye contact with the girl in the house, for just a brief moment, but long enough for her to see you ....

........ to see you.

It is not fear when I refuse to feel afraid. Does it not then follow that it is not love if I refuse to feel? And how long could I keep that charade going? Would hours bleed into weeks bleed into years ....... or does the bleeding eventually stop and I am forced to accept my fate.

I don't want somewhere to run to
I don't want somebody I can shake
Lord I want my dignity again
Before I walk on fire
You gotta look me in the face

I won't flinch
And I won't turn away

I admit I am afraid. I am scared. When one is counting days, how many is enough to say Yes?

You asked WHY?

Because I need to feel, I need someone to see me. Because I need to know that the worst pain I could ever feel is behind me, beyond me, and will never define me.

Fresh Air and Spring Flowers

March 2004

10 Things I Like About Him

He is much smarter than he pretends to be

He has nice hands

He appreciates clever alliteration

He casually drops dead-pan puns

He drinks scotch (yes, I noticed)

He's tall

He's a gentleman

He asked before he kissed me

He looks great in a hat

He appreciates “Happy Pants”

Soooooooooo, I could probably make time in my schedule to see him again; reschedule this meeting, cancel that appointment, etc, etc, etc

And the technology thing is ok.... my girlfriend broke out in a rash when her husband hooked up cable, developed hives when he installed DSL - she HATES technology!!  LOL

I’m going to stop talking now and hit the "send" button

March 2004

The Man Who Gave Me a Garden – March 2007

In between the VP of Finance and the Engineer, woven opposite of the Audio Thief, there was the English Teacher.

I met him at a time in my life when I was unsure of my status as an animated being. He convinced me that a glass of water in a public place was no risk and did not constitute a commitment. Being in shock as I was from having woken up from yet another life threatening surgery, the proposition left me without a retort. How could I argue? And so it began.

I placed all these silly boundaries and restrictions upon him.

Me: You can come to my house for coffee, but I won't have sex with you.
Him: But we can make out a little, right?
Me: Oh, of course.

I told myself the boundaries were important because he was so overwhelming. He stood 6' 4" and was broad shouldered. He was the first man in many years who towered over me, and made me feel petite and vulnerable.

It was not long before we fell into a weekend routine of all night sex and fabulously long leisurely breakfasts on the front porch together. I relate cooking and eating to sex – after all, they do hit the same erogenous zones and have historically been linked. I figured the cooking on "the morning after" was simply an extension of the previous night's glorious adventures in pleasure.

He taught me the secret to making strong bold "starbucks" coffee at home. He showed me how a small amount of chopped bacon could transform boring scrambled eggs into a gourmet meal. He educated me in the divinity of seasoned salt. I think I was most surprised by the biscuits.

One morning he declared that he was done with toast. Go take a shower, he commanded, the biscuits need to rise. When I came out, freshly washed and smelling less like sex and more like a girl, there were six freshly baked biscuits on the counter. I can't remember now if my shock was for the actual appearance of home made baked goods in my domicile, or the unholy mess he had made of my kitchen in the process of baking said biscuits.

It was a time in my life when I had no money and lived on a meager allowance at the fringes of the San Pedro ghetto district. We watched TV together, and attended matinees. We went for walks in the park. We drove around the beach city at night with the top down. The spring air and the scent of night blooming jasmine intoxicating us. More often than not we ended up on a deserted side street, alone under the oaks trees, lips locked, arms wrapped and the smell of jasmine wafting around us. The usual passionate kisses inevitably turned steamy as our hands were all over each other. Reaching under and up and down and around, touching and caressing each other.

Our birthdays were very close together. I bought him a heavy zippo lighter. It was a smokey brass large men's lighter engraved with his initials on one side and a favorite line from the poem "Variations" by Frederico Garcia Lorca… "under a thicket of kisses".

The still waters of the air
under the bough of the echo.

The still waters of the water
under a frond of stars.

The still waters of your mouth
under a thicket of kisses.

Two weeks later, for my birthday, he gave me a garden. He had arranged a tour of the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena on the day of my birthday. It just so happened to be the birthday of Jane Goodall, being celebrated at the Gardens. There were "Happy Birthday" banners and balloons all over the Library grounds.

That night we made passionate love in his loft apartment, with the scent of night blooming jasmine floating in through the open windows.

One evening after he had put on a particularly chivalrous display of manliness, we ended up in our usual spot against the tile of my oversized shower. Under the waterfall of the shower head, I accidentally told him that I loved him. I meant it in the endearing, "Oh I just love lemon meringue pie". I understand the mistake, we were naked, in the shower. Behind all that steam a person can become quite misled.

We went along at a frantic pace, having passionate sex, eating fabulous food and lounging in each other's arms on warm spring mornings. It was only a matter of time before the accidental declaration in the shower became a hardened reality.

He gave me a garden and I fell in love with him.

After the passion faded, I was left with his friendship. I moved into the apartment next to his when it became available. I wanted to be in the one place I had truly fell and felt in love. I wanted to be reminded of the late morning love making, with music and strong coffee. It was no longer about the English Teacher, it was about reclaiming that feeling of being in love.

After many long lonely years of not knowing what love felt like, of not having any idea of love, I had finally found my way back to the emotion that had abandoned me.

It was not about love, it was the idea of love.   It was about the idea of the Garden.