One night of freedom

It was a stupid fight that's been over for weeks. But I can't move past this one statement, because on some level I feel it, too. I mean, I've felt it before. Not in such a hateful way or in a moment of anger, but laying on my bed naked after getting out of the shower, letting the soft breeze air dry my skin figuring out what to wear on our date. Feeling the ticking of the clock, worrying that each moment I make him wait will frustrate him, but still unable to get moving. Wishing I didn't have to rush, wishing I could lounge around in my robe listening to any sort of music I like but he didn't. Wishing now that the tenses of these statements weren't . . . aren't . . . so hard to nail down. Is it a freedom I want long term, or just for now? Just for one night. I faced this moment, a little over a year back, knowing that for one night I could have my cake and eat it, too. Instead I couldn't run from this freedom any faster. I remember bolting down the stairs so fast, I forgot I was running from a decent, yet lost, human being. One who had taught me more than he'd ever know. One worth saying good-bye to, at the very least. I was so sure that night as I snuggled up next to my gentle giant, that he was the one I wanted. Freedom was over-rated, I wanted him. I wanted love. I wanted someone who was hard to walk away from. I wanted a reason to stick around.

But knowing he feels the same sometime. What does this mean to me? To us? It's opened so many questions in my heart I don't know how to quiet them. It makes me wonder if you can really tame a wanderlust or turn your back on the fact that some of us were truly just born to run.

Either way I love him, but I wonder if this is what it's supposed to be like. Laying in each others arms longing for escape, a sea of loneliness found in the inches between you on the king size bed. Even if it's just for one night, or one moment of one night, is this acceptable? Is this love?

iPhone Fail: Frank Prevails!

I tried mercilessly to use my iPhone to post this poem the other day. Copy and pasting on this beast still alludes me, as does talking on the phone WITHOUT accidentally hanging up.


SLEEPING ON THE WING


Perhaps it is to avoid some great sadness,
as in a Restoration tragedy the hero cries "Sleep!
O for a long sound sleep and so forget it!"
that one flies, soaring above the shoreless city,
veering upward from the pavement as a pigeon
does when a car honks or a door slams, the door
of dreams, life perpetuated in parti-colored loves
and beautiful lies all in different languages.

Fear drops away too, like the cement, and you
are over the Atlantic. Where is Spain? where is
who? The Civil War was fought to free the slaves,
was it? A sudden down-draught reminds you of gravity
and your position in respect to human love. But
here is where the gods are, speculating, bemused.
Once you are helpless, you are free, can you believe
that? Never to waken to the sad struggle of a face?
to travel always over some impersonal vastness,
to be out of, forever, neither in nor for!

The eyes roll asleep as if turned by the wind
and the lids flutter open slightly like a wing.
The world is an iceberg, so much is invisible!
and was and is, and yet the form, it may be sleeping
too. Those features etched in the ice of someone
loved who died, you are a sculptor dreaming of space
and speed, your hand alone could have done this.
Curiosity, the passionate hand of desire. Dead,
or sleeping? Is there speed enough? And, swooping,
you relinquish all that you have made your own,
the kingdom of your self sailing, for you must awake
and breathe your warmth in this beloved image
whether it's dead or merely disappearing,
as space is disappearing and your singularity.

Frank O'Hara
[1957]