I don’t know how to just be friends with you without caring way more than I should about your happiness and well-being. I would like to be your friend but I don’t see how it’s possible. Not without feeling torn apart all the time. I know you don’t want me. I can’t pretend that I don’t want you. I think that puts us at an impasse . You probably don’t want to hear any of this. I can’t keep quiet. It is not who I am. I feel a profound, constant connection to you. And little by little I fell in love with the woman you are becoming. I think you sometimes use me to make yourself feel better. You know how I feel and maybe it seems to do no harm, but it hurts me. Because, unless your feelings have changed, I know you are just playing with me. I can’t. I won’t play the game. There’s this thought in my head that if I can ride this out we’ll be amazing. But you started this game right when I was at my lowest. Right in the week prior to the Anniversary of Morgan’s death. And when I fell back, like a moth to a flame, when you knew you had me, you stopped talking to me. This game is over. I can’t play it. Not with someone who would use Morgan against me like that.
Author: Pelgris
On writing physical character description
I have a hard time writing about how people look. Clothes, no problem. The look in their eyes, the way they move or smile, I got it. But their physical look? I have to sit and ponder. Really think about it. Because on a fundamental level, I don’t see their looks when I look at them. I see their personality. Or my impression of that personality based on intuitive logic if we’ve just met. I call it, somewhat pretentiously, seeing with my heart. This doesn’t mean that I don’t see the physical, just that it’s not the first thing I think about when I think of someone. So, in my writing, I have to dig fairly deep into my own head to actually come up with the look of someone. I have to build them so that I know them entire before I know what they look like.
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Just the Opposite
I’m tired now.
Sick now
Having drunk midnight wine
I find myself back in the daylight
A memory or a dream
Either have left their mark.
You see it coming but the on rushing train
Is as much exhilaration as danger.
It slams into
Breaking down well worn edges.
Fracture points of the past
I awake now, blinded by the sun
Aching and staggered.
Should have been content, should have been simple.
Let time do its work.
But never content
A roll of the dice
A razor balanced on its edge
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On writing poetry and sex
When I want to write a poem but can’t seem to find the key to start, I begin to feel a yearning for the release of writing. It is almost lust. Very much akin to desire to touch and be desired and to lose ourselves in our bodies. Those moans of pleasure and need, giving over to mindless rut. Until payoff and, for me, emptiness. In sex, when I make the destination instead of the journey the goal, I feel empty, cored out after. When I write, I feel empty after but somehow hopeful and lighter. It’s not poetry but at least it’s something. Writing a piece like this leaves me both satiated and hungry for something more. It’s not what I wanted but it’s what was available. But the poem is what I want. Like having vanilla sex but wanting complexity. Or wanting to hear your voice set in orgasm and never quite getting you there. Disappointing, somewhat enjoyable and also, not enough.
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Liquid gold
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Weft and weave
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Losing sleep
Never knowin where this is all going
just broken
sifting sand looking for a emerald
that’s too general
not looking for money
it’s ephemeral
this life is not perfect
but some people make it worth it
friends and family
they just want the best for me
they don’t understand what that is though
I’m getting to the point where I don’t know
just looking for that spark that moment
when light shines and its all made clear
it’s misleading
mind knows the truth then I start thinking
let grief and fear cloud my feelings
I’m just sinking
waves got me drowning
ocean pulls me under
and makes me wonder if this peaceful sleep is the last thing I’ll choose
but I’ll never go quietly, out like a bang not a whimper
I’ll never be nearer
this hollow maze guides me back to choices made for me
heart that’s full to bursting
alleviate the pressure
fantasy never quite resolving to reality
words are both my truth and my victim
light myself on fire to light your way home to me
but talking to an empty room
it all just ends so soon
endings take care of themselves
but beginnings and middles can last forever
if we work at it
and if it ends
transform to bring me back to you
or break free from your cage and find me no longer in dreams but in the real
woken up to reality which makes sleep a enemy
not wanting to take a step further away from you
even as dreams pull me under
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Song for the day
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An exercise
Do this: Close your eyes.
From the bottom of your feet, up your legs; into you groin, into your abdomen, up your back, your chest, down your arms; up your face, up your skull, across your scalp, every piece fo skin, what is it that you feel, not generally, but specifically. hold it all in you mind
move your tongue about, what do you taste, a filling? that last bit of popcorn, the mustard from a sandwich; the dryness of salt?
hold it all
breathe in deeply through your nose, without losing focus, add that feeling of air coursing into your lungs and out again
now sample the air, what do you smell, the faintest hint of decay, dryness in the air, a faint whiff of deodorant, of bleach, of pinsol, electronics
now hold that in your mind;
now listen, the wind against your eardrums; in the trees, an engine starting, a car rolling past; faint laughter in the distance, cicadas strumming; birds landing, what do you hear, hold it in your mind
now, open your eyes, do not allow the sight to overwhelm all that you are holding steady in your mind; the inclination is to let sight wash the rest to background;
don’t allow it. look at it all, see each piece, each tarnish, the wind moving the trees; the blue quality of light
Now just be, in that moment, seconds slipping by but not passing each one held and let slip seconds dripping by.
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Unfolding
In the quiet heartbeat
In the deeps
There is doubt
In the space between breathes
In the silence
Fear gives its council
Slipping inward
Gasping for air
The maelstrom calms
In the quiet heartbeat
In the deeps
There is resolve
In the space between breathes
In the silence
I awaken
Pelgris 