Wishful Thinking

Sometimes I wish that you could just feel how deeply I feeland know the true depths of my love.If only I could, I’d take hold of your hands,take hold of your fingers,
and let them run over the face of my spirit,the uneven surface of my broken, torn, weary soul.And at great risk of tearing myself apart,I would let you touch the texture of my heart.Because maybe then
– just maybe then –
you would come to learn and understandhow much it all hurts
and how painful it is
to burden the thought of losing you,even if you are
not mine to lose.

Love's Irony

Have we been any less loving—than kind?
When it was love we wanted, 
there was none love to give,
and yet when there was love to give
it was not the love we wanted.
Thus the love we receive 
is no more than the love we deserve

Lusful

To want you is never enough 
to know you–
What it is to touch you, to hold you,
to wake up in arms of which I do not wish to stir.
As I am neither the light in your eyes, nor the wind in your hair.
And yet you are ever the warmth in my arms at night,
even though I can only hold you–
In my heart

Stand Still

I have seen so much beauty.

Yet it still has the power to excite me, 
to thrill me, to captivate me. 
To enrapture, to enthrall, to fascinate, 
to intrigue, to mesmerize.
 
I think of you on this sultry summer’s night, 
the air thick with warmth, scent and desire. 
Strains of almost-heard music on the faint breeze.
The sound of a home-bound bus in the long, long distance. 
Animals stirring in the undergrowth. 
A hunting owl calling to its mate. 
The air quietly whispering beneath the bridge.

I picture you in a summer dress, 
the skirt flowing like a sea about your legs, 
the bodice clinging tightly to your sweet body, 
the straps emphasizing the geometry of your exquisite shoulders. 
Your skin perfect in the candlelight.

I imagine you, and I catch my breath as your fingers toy with the first in a line of buttons.

I have seen so much beauty.

But yours makes time stand still.

These days

These days I see you everywhere.

I catch a glimpse of you on the road, the route I take to work, the girl with a pony tail, pouting at a boy who doesn’t deserve her.

You are the pretty waitress who glides between tables and disappears behind the double doors to the noisy kitchen and does not re-emerge. Even though I dwell forever over my coffee.

You are the svelte, stunning, fresh-skinned singer in the shortest of skirts reciting some song I can’t remember You catch my eye momentarily and heart-stoppingly thirty times at once in a store selling televisions.

As I close my eyes on the bus home and let the music in my headphones fill my ears you are the first image to transform the darkness, dancing to your favourite song.

Your fingers are toying with the buttons on your shirt.

I see fragments of you everywhere. But they are just fragments…

And you are so far away.

Moving On

‘I gave you everything’

She tried but she couldn’t hide the slight tremor in her voice. It made her lower her head. She halved a breadcrumb on the table with her thumbnail, and then flicked it away. She picked up her glass and gripped it like a microphone.

He studied her face. He could read it perfectly, but always found something new written upon it. He considered his reply.

‘You gave me no more than you wanted to give.’

‘But you gave me nothing!’

Her retort was angry, sharp. Even as it left her lips she was sure it wasn’t entirely true. She replaced the words with a mouthful of wine. It followed what she had already drunk and went straight to her head.

‘I gave you everything I could give.’ His reply was gentle and yet weary. This was not a new conversation.

She thought about what he had said and felt locked down by it. She shook her head as if freeing herself to speak. ‘It wasn’t enough.’

‘Yet it was more than you expected, more than you hoped.’ He paused. It sounded defensive, and yet it wasn’t a defence. ‘It was more than I ever promised,” he whispered, carefully blunting a wooden cocktail stick into his plate

There was a long silence. The tension was palpable and seemed to fill the restaurant. It kept the waitress away.

‘I need you,’ she told him, her soul laid bare.

‘I am here.’

‘No.’ She spoke with absolute certainty. ’You are never here.’

Mistake

At what point does he realise?
Is it when he wakes to find she has left no word?
No gentle mailed reminder of her gorgeous presence.
Is it when he points the car towards the office and the first song on the radio has an image of her in every line?
Is it when he finds himself comparing every woman he sees with the absolute glory of her face and form and finding others utterly wanting?
Is it when her smile and scent dull his defences and he can’t stop her from climbing into his thoughts and curling up in his heart?
Is it when he goes to sleep and she is the last thing he thinks of as he closes his tired eyes?
At what point does he realise
He has made such a stupid mistake?

PROVE

I have nothing to prove to myself
A warm but insistent breeze is testing the new leaves.
Wispy white clouds are sailing across a wide sky.
The sun is tenderly stretching the skin of my face.
I shade my eyes as it rises above the silent house.
He tilts his laptop to better see the screen.
I types words quickly as I have always done,
tapping harder for emphasis.
As if it will underscore the letters.
Until my limited attention span is spent.
Yawning, I survey my mailbox for the last time.
I stand and stretch my denim clad legs.
I raise my arms above my head in a primal salute
to distantly approaching summer, catching the a scent of it on the dancing air.
I exhale slowly, letting my thoughts and emotions float away on my breath.
I snap the macbook shut.
I have nothing to prove to himself
I have nothing to prove to anyone.

ACHE

I forget how lovely she is.
Our lives only touch at the edges.  
I have not seen her for days.  
She only visits me in my imagination.  
I could not fully recreate her perfection in my fantasies.
So when we met inevitably yet unexpectedly, 
I was knocked sideways by the collision.   
I was stunned by the lithe and elegant sensuality of her body.  
My breath  stolen by her brown-eyed beauty.
I was blown away by her smile.
I cannot understand why every man does not ache for her.
As I do.

Memory

I had thought to capture—the moment,
however fragile or fleeting,
and feel it move between the palms of my hands.
Soft and silent, like a moth
with wings fluttering–yet frightened
as it searches for light in the darkness of my skin