shoes

i
i
i
want
more than anything
more than ever
to take flight
but i find
that my shoes are made of concrete



i forget momentarily
(this moment encompasses my decade)
that i can
take my shoes off
…………………………………..
she
she
she
wants
more than anything
more than ever
to take flight
and finds that
her shoes are made
of concrete

she momentarily has forgotten
(that moment longer than her memory holds)
that she can
take off
her shoes

what good are words if they are not shared?
heard?
what good are we
if i still fear
that your existence may touch mine?
……………………………………
what good is love
if it is stranded in fear?

in which the ego renders the heart’s energy


impotent
…………………………………….

he
he
he
wants to fly
fearing fearing fearing
that her attentions will solidify
into concrete
bearing down upon his ribs

he and she both
regretfully, for a moment forgetting
(a moment whose destructive expansiveness
must be taken as seriously as the most serious threat)
that they owe one another
nothing

that love
is not heavy

that fear
though natural
is not necessary

and that honesty
is free
……………………………………

i
you
i you i
will continue to repeat the same mistake
past my own bodily death
past yours until
we
emerge
above
the drowning tide of our fears
and breath

deeper than thought allows.

dream/life

when I am dreaming it is kind of hard to know where my hands are*
Natalie said

.
.
.


all around
the zoo
every body lives in a cage
cages surround other cages surrounding smaller cages still
people in the outer cages look at those in the inner cages
thinking themselves free
every cage and every bar
with time becomes invisible

is it possible to be partially free?
is it a thing sold in degrees, slices?

children in Qalqilya*
cry everyday
their teacher helpless
empty of anything to offer
at the zoo
their eyes feed them
see these animals
lives more repressed than their own
and convince themselves of how
much worse it could be

my niece, not yet nine years alive
so distant on the phone
tells me stories
broken
yet true because she dreamt them

i ride my bicycle
through the life i am creating of my own dreams
through the warm and windy streets of the city
and wonder why i do not feel free

is this part of the awakening road?
realizing that there is no such thing as
partially free
partially true

in an omniversal reality
perspectives on truth
an infinity humans may or may not ever evolve to know

and yet there is such a thing as bullshit

my kin choose pill-shaped freedom
over their intense and chronic pain
i, with my partial-mended heart
take solace in daily fatigue
even the Buddha indulged in comfort
two decades hiding from the pain of freedom
so say projections of an orientalist mind**

i can understand why children lie
so strong is their need to protect their grownups
so strong their belief in the immutability
of their own imperfections

secrets to guard more critical than life
…………………….
before saying goodnight i tell Natalie
that her life, like her dreams
are in her own hands

shackled i
wonder if either of us know
how to distinguish the bullshit from a dream

*http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1616.shtml

**in The Art of Dreaming, author Carlos Castaneda recommends that to bring oneself out of one’s dream, one merely needs to look at one’s own hands.

***Herman Hesse, author of Siddhartha

thirteen ways of looking at the end of us

1. that you left me because i was not __________ (blank)__________ enough

2. or because i was too much of _____(what?!?)________,
which you could not take –
on a very regular basis

what?

3. that being left by you leaves me with the certainty of being un-
(or at least no longer) -loved by you

and the question of to what degree am i eventually to be eternally unloved
by anyone

4. or just by anyone remotely like you

5. and the next question
(sometimes veering on a certainty, but which i repeatedly realize, in the process of stepping back to reality that it is, in truth, only a question)
in other words i think
that i can not know who is extremely similar to you
or who possesses the quality of yours’
of not being able to – as you always said – take me (live with me)
-at least not on a very regular basis

6. ahem – that i can not know unless i try who is and who isn’t
better yet
who can and who can’t
love and live in loving
the complication of me
taking the good with the bad and
experiencing all of it
-or me -
as the good

7. and – AHEM --
that no matter how many times i thought i could fool myself into
thinking otherwise
i was and will never have a mind available to
the love of another
until i give up completely
on
the idea of us
the idea, that is, of you and i actively engaging in the life of us

8. and the circular and wondering question of if
i can turn my face and daily intention away from seeking to fix
that which has clearly gone from wrong to wronger

9. and not identify myself as a failure for doing so



10. in another set of words
does giving up on a life of loving you mean giving up on love in general?

11. does it mean converting my thoughts on having loved you into the sorrowful and tedious thought: “well, it must not have been True Love.”?

12. or can i simply say: “some things are not meant to be.” ?

13. and walk away
with myself

taking the good with the bad
saying
knowing that
the bad is not bad,
it’s just different than the original fantasy and

taking myself back

saying
Knowing That
i Can Love
and still (not give Myself away)

come here (a story)

with desire request became demand,
“come here”

there comes a point where there is no further point in game playing
nor doubt.

“come here”
it is obeyed

perhaps i am obeyed?

daily i fall in love with my own self. this fact both is and is not the instigating factor for what comes next. crazy love this. it can also be secondary, arguably irrelevant, to the becoming experience of objectification. i am now another’s subject. the valley into which to fall. beloved. the passion of the game.

but towards the mutual fall and the un-sensible idea of two together?

how many hair width’s away?
a breath?
they were now almost skin to that first touch——cara.

a whisper, “i finally am ready to open my brain’s heart into yours”

“it is the intelligence’s seduction that bonds the deal,”

“you know i’ve made love to you before, though you didn’t know”

“are you sure i didn’t know?
perhaps i’ve done the same to you”

“regularly"

a smile expands, extends. reaches.

a belief resurfaces.
my “lower” self’s organs are fighting my “upper” self’s emotional high. preference of a cup half drained than one flowing and filled with promises, toxic in their fleetingness.

the conflict may not even be necessary.
but both lovers suffer from full spectrum intelligence. endlessly flexible. it has always been of our own choosing.
could a war with two winners end with no losers?
both had lived and died sufficiently to doubt it.

a keyboard on which hands play.

the crisp clicks, hard stepping. rhythmic. repeat.

words on the screen.
my eyes burn jealous with admiration, the beauty being created. i resent the end of this war, my safety. the effect of this cease-fire the end of all i know? as my tool of confession is conquered, de-sanctified, i panic. what would stop those hands from surmounting me, ripping my soul apart from her only outlet and refuge?

each tap pulls me four times back, five times forward.
a dance.
i worship the sweat gracing your pores, inhale your odor—high, scattering away imprisonment, self-control.
lightly I realize I’ve dropped the need of knowing who comes next.


NO
it had become intolerable. how…. dare… presumptuousness… i will not allow this condescension any longer.

the thought loud and louder
registers

audible now:
“i am truly sorry.
to have in any way violated your sacred spaces”
,
the clicks, shoes soft-stepping, retreat.
,
,
,
,
fear combined with confrontation, decades of hoarded collective inaction

one further flash
violently persuasive, mongering
then rejected
…………………………………………..

is it possible to know at what point our words syntaxed then dissapeared?

no longer are there isolating covers separating desire with propaganda
no sanctuary, no partial freedom.

the merger goes off

it only takes one moment

for now
this is sufficient.