I just had my little breakfast meal…its usually three scrambled eggs with some veggies and this morning the fridge was poppin’ with fresh cut veggies from last nights shrimp tacos. Tommy be wantin’ to cook, and I be tryin’ not to micro manage and let him find his footing in my kitchen…a place I have found to be refuge in the past five years. It’s a delicate dance for a new couple. Navigating space together. After jumping with both feet in, I find myself pulling back a knee from time-to-time, backing out of the water that usually feels so good, watching the waves ripple and heading back in…he is out there waiting for me.
I wake up most mornings, now, thinking about not only myself but another, after being single for five years post-divorce. It is an exercise in patience, gratitude and care…love is…So I woke up this morning in that vein—seeing another off to work again, with well wishes, waking earlier than I might have otherwise and starting a new day.
It starts with my daily dose of technology…I’m all up in emails, IG and them Facebook streets saying what’s up to y’all and what not…I try to drop a little conscious positivity in my IG stories and then commit to a little work. Checking my work email leads to personal email, and it is there that I see, amongst the many emails from SubStack I have received since I joined, one reading, Introducing LoveStack in the subject line…What is this you say? My first instinct is that this is a place where we/writers would exclusively post about love…well…as a lover of love and fan of Pablo Neruda…I got a few sonnets for that ass…I read on—LoveStack is actually “…A little old place where we can get together…”, to find our next lesson in love catalyzed by a thing I love…words. LoveStack, ladies, gentlemen and everyone in between, is, “the first and only match-making service based on your reading preferences.” Well blow me down!
I am. So very. Intrigued.
Not for me, obviously…I mean it did cross my mind how I have been seriously contemplating dating in the digital age for the past few years, and I wonder how this will impact the many who decide to subscribe to this service. Oh well…
I get up, make the bed, brush my teeth, make myself kitchen worthy and make those two eggs, not three today…(of course I pee’d) and I put on some hot water for tea which I have only just realized I never drank. Hold on.
Somewhere in the Facebook streets I was reminded that today is not only a new day but a new month—April—National Poetry Month. This is the month that we poets and writers challenge ourselves and (re)commit to daily writing practice, if need be, and do the #30for30. So now, all I can think about is love and poetry and words and reading and love and language and swimming and floating and drowning…and getting rescued by words and love.
In honor of it all, I have decided to share a couple of poems on the subject…a bit of a trajectory of my love-live in the past several years, sans Tommy. He wants poetry…yes, he does…but I have realized that I haven’t written any for him because we are the poetry—
Or that maybe this is my first crack at it: After meeting online, a practice meant only for me to procure a date for a Bulls/Pacers game, Thomas and quickly moved our interactions to “IRL”, something I noticed happens infrequently in online “dating”. A lot of people are lonely or bored and just want a phone-a-friend to send a barrage of “Good Morning Beautiful”s without any substance, but we planned a F2F meeting during our first interaction, which evolved from an ill-fated, video-chat in which my gregarious ass was constantly frozen in odd, open-mouthed, hand-gestury positions, to a 5-hour phone conversation. Later that week met for lunch that turned to drinks and dessert and we dodged a snow storm together that night. We went to that basketball game two days later (the Bulls won) and we have been inching towards open water ever since. I think about us: two over 40 divorcee daters and how the “stars aligned” for us to meet. We had the first moments, physically together and we are still creating them in 3-D.
I wonder how the sapiosexuals will fair in LoveStack…Whether this approach will work for daters…If they will fall in love with each other as much as they do the words, conversations and moments they will likely cultivate in an online space. I recognize how much we all deeply need love in a variety of forms and how there are so many of us who simply aren’t getting what we need and even some one us who don’t see a way to find/get it. We are at the place in society where we simultaneoulsly have more choices in love yet fewer options. A conumdrum I hope never to find myself in again.
With all this, I am commiting to #NAPOMO #30for30 doing a little bit of unpacking on the aforementioned subjects and ask you to do some as well…with whatever your poetry is. See if you can commit to something new or old or something you’ve neglected or go after something with a little more or less vigor for these next 30, beautiful days. Just float until you swim.
I have recently recommitted myself to daily meditation, recognizing the positive impact it has on me, so you might mess around and see a #meditationspacemusing one of these days.
Imma be a whole new b.i.t.c.h. come May…
Now read these poems…please 😉
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published
An End to Hiatus Her body is like summer earth. Receptive, soft and absolute. Gwendolyn Brooks he peels layers of pajamas underneath winter blanket until all lies beneath our feet grateful that kisses are silent our dyad is left alone Married people do snatch pillows from king beds avoid one another in the span of small rooms prepare and eat meals with etiquette meant for strangers so in this timorous moon, as the blue light of clock brandishes headboard as a matter of survival we uncloak one another clumsily copulate in copious darkness in our humanness and savagery our frailty resilience this wee morning, we hum our vows through skin Wet for Sabir From the very first moments I found myself surrounded by noise but somehow alone with him This man, a mystery peering over at me, occasionally biting his bottom lip He is hungry; I thought and wondered if I'd ever get to quench that thirst His eyes, sheltered by pain, passion, and no Godly ideas about what he wanted to do pierced me. Imagination like gauze draped shadows across his skin I saw it. There. Written so clearly and heavily on his face. With his grin. I knew. His eyes are like rivers, so, often he watched me wading away trying to remember, catch myself from falling, slipping into those beds I remember the time I went rafting white water crashing into us And then there I was, suddenly submerged pulling ahead too quickly for me to think until love tried to save me This feels a little like that. Only he means for me to drown Wants to swallow me in his arms and leave me yearning to pull me to the bottom and watch me aimlessly float His eyes are like rivers They are wide, deep and rushing And though I love the water, I have forgotten how to swim Nemesis for HIM Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along. ~Rumi Under a blanket of almost day He comes, 2 knocks at the door 5 missed calls and 1 message Can I come see you?? Hours after Bye! ✌ The knocks jolt me from my bed rattle my twice beating heart. It now pumps a rare blood. Blood that has been absent for years... the kind of blood for lovers. The kind for a woman in love or in like or in lust warm and thick I pick up the phone to check the time and see the hearts <3 <3 and the halo What the fuck are you doing here? Let me in I snatch off my satin cap grab a robe and pace a little I open the door in loud whispers admonishing not loving or liking or lusting at all Somehow hours earlier I had known he would come, so I should have been prepared I wish I could have opened the door, but first traced a <3 in the frosted the glass for him be whimsical like a unicorn Opened the door and pulled him in to my warmth by his collar, kissed him gently, held his face the way he likes But I unlocked the screechy screen flung it open, paced more, flailed my arms in anger and frustration confusion even I am hurt I had just claimed my peace after I told him about that night how I wanted to tell him I loved him while my brain was climbing into a stratosphere of its own making How this was as close to love at first sight as it could ever be How in his eyes there was something eternal How maybe I had already known him. Our souls somehow twinned Mirrored and reflected. The same, yet opposites Me full of words He stuffed full with emotion Both of us rearing to explode at any moment oil over water bombs away to which he chose to say peace And now, here in this unknown hour I wanted to take him in my arms before he took me in his But quickly, I was there struggling in his clutches. Grasping for agency He kept saying please I kept saying please He kept grabbing my wrists as I grabbed for his And Exactly when the question, why am I fighting you? formed in my thoughts, he asked me why am I fighting you? His hands are no match for my burst of clarity. What is happening here? Why do you think you get to do this? He let go. We had spoken of the pain and pleasure before We are both fighters, but We both want to surrender, yet we are both too weak to do either now I wanted to come to the door surrounded by nothing but darkness, but it is still too early to tell... too risky, too nonsensical, too scary and somehow too late If I give myself to him, I may break and then we will both just be broken I am the heroin here. But now I realize the flaw in my design. I finally went back to the bedroom, curled underneath him and fell asleep in the rise and fall of our breath His chest and stomach soothing my back. Our fingers interlaced. And I knew I'd be able to let him go this time. This, his final act of passion wrapped in disrespect and disregard. At least in my mind I am always to paces ahead of my would-be emotions Too careful. With love at least. Yeah, this the shit 80s movies are made of, but its 2020, and mutherfuckers be crazy. I again rise from this near stranger in my bed I am pacing again head outside packing my car for the day’s errands It is daylight now. I awake him with my touch chilled by the morning air. His foot, his chest once he is awake, I hug him and ask him if he is ok...if HE is ok? Before I tell him, you gotta go. I don’t want to be this way, but I am. Hot and cold. Angel and something less holy. We each walk away with less than a glance. Gouging a tundra between us. Both cut. Blood spilling on the ice beneath our feet. Chanell Ruth
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.