Oh Neruda...

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

~Pablo Neruda
Read more: http://hellopoetry.com/poem/xvii-i-do-not-love-you/#ixzz1Bqf1j8nv

Who said that love was fire?

Who said that love was fire?
I know that love is ash.
It is the thing which remains
When the fire is spent,
The holy essence of experience.

~Patience Worth

What I meant to say was that I want to fall in love with you very, very slowly

No one has as absurd a love life as I do.

NO ONE.

True.

From PostSecret.

a secret in 4 parts

1.1 here's the secret
in your absence my love turns into green apples
i imagine eating them with you
under the trees

2.1 i left the bar when it was raining
down the stairs, into the night
except...
everything turned into poetry
tom waits was playing
i smoked under the christmas lights
thinking about unrequited love

3.1 here's the secret
i don't miss you anymore

2.2 it's been raining since you left

1.2 there are no apples

4.1 i don't miss you anymore

2.3 um, I don't even know you?

0.1 when i am with you, the air i breath turns into bone

3.1.1 but...

2.4 the romantic and the cynic have been battling since we met
even the cynic wants to throw the game
lose spectacularly

0.2 we all carry the past within us
in the crook of our dendrites
in the lines of our palms
in our bones

1.3 here's the secret
there are apples when you touch me

4.1.1 i will always miss you

4.2 you understand the beauty of the perfect moment

2.5 i loved you at first sight (more or less)

2.5.1 a secret i try to keep from myself

3.2 i loved you when you told me "this is what a pecan a tree smells like"

4.3 i loved you at first sight (more or less)

1.4 i will never know when I first loved you

0.3 everything turns into the beating of blood
everything turns into poetry
everything turns

0.4 here's the not-very-well-kept secret
I confuse dreams with reality

0.4.1 because i am human

1.5 thank you

4.4 thank you

we call each other

we call each other
we call each other

i stood on the edge of the deck
toes wiggling in the darkness
and my phone died
or rather
it became
and i laid on my back
looking into the night sky
(or what i could i see of it from the southwest edge of the city)
feeling my heart beat in my chest
the length of my bones
the forest of my nervous system
thinking of you and your flashlight
walking home
and...
and..
and.
and there is no end to this
we are forever becoming

i know you understand
(more than anyone)

Just give me one thing that I can hold on to

it's 4 am and i can't sleep
my right hand signs beautiful behind my back when i think of you

Things that make me cry in my cubicle. Part VIII.

I'm a total softy for dancing and weddings.

Why won't the drunken poetry let me go to sleep?

i've never written about you

we meet elsewhere
in the marrow of my pelvis
in silence
icebergs touching under the surface

you and i
the trembling of birds
stunned
held in the palms of a savior
human

youarethebirdiamthepalm
iamthebirdyouarethepalm
hollow bones hollow bones
resting

with you i can close my eyes
with you i can rest
with you there are no words
only the whisper of iceberg to iceberg

to write about you i have to be still
keep you inside of me like a secret

~

even though i can't sleep
you come to me in my dreams

in my dreams
we never speak

This entry is about you

my love for you is tangled up in the lines of my palms
i am not even the same person any more
thank you

Yes.

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer from The Invitation

what i really want to say is this

i miss the night. the softness, the shadowed edges, the stillness. walking out under the stars and realizing you are a human being. everything weighs differently at night - i'm pretty sure gravity changes. some things float a few inches above the surface of things while others weigh you down. if virginia woolf had tried to kill herself at night, the stones she put in her coat pocket would probably have pulled her right out of the river, and taken her up up up up and away like a balloon, until she kissed the face of the moon.

time is different, too. slower. maybe heavier, maybe lighter. dreamier. perhaps that is it. maybe the world of dreams seeps out at night, gliding along the surface of things, pooling in unexpected places, brushing up against corners like a cat, painting everything strange colors, making things more permeable. everything is more permeable at night. past, present, and future bleed into each, causing everything to make a different kind of sense, a new kind of sense. love makes sense at night. and families, too. all of that heart bone blood marrow stone stuff makes sense at night.

ach. i want to be painted the color of dreams. i want all the rocks in my apartment to float against the ceiling, to try to break free. i want to feel the weight of someone's dreams, of their bones, of their heart.

i want to stay up until i get all the words right.

What happens when an adult child of an alcoholic dates a narcissist? Read on!

I was in love with a monster. The cold, hard, middle-of-the-night truth is I was in love with a monster. A monster I painted in fairy tale colors, clothed in my dreams. I wrapped him up so tight so I couldn’t see him, couldn’t see his face, or his tail, or the ravenous hunger in his eyes. I daubed him in gold dust and we both admired the way he glinted in the sunshine, his image fractured by the light, difficult to discern. Sometimes he looked like a prince. He wanted to be a prince. I wanted him to be prince. I held the monster lovingly, and tickled his underbelly, and cooed soothing words into his ears. I fed him, helped him grow, made sure he didn’t disappear. Sweetly offering him honey and nectar, candies made of my own desire, Irish coffee, ambrosia, and chicken wings. Monsters like chicken wings. I think it has something to do with being flightless. Of eating appendages that are supposed to lift you from the ground but can no longer do so.

I was in love with a monster.

So what of this monster? This monster who wants to be a prince? “I’m a prince!” the petulant child says, with, of course, a stamp of his foot. And he notices that his fingernails grow thicker each time he says that phrase. “I’m a prince, not a little boy!” he yells stubbornly, and feels a tingling at the base of his spine. He starts to dress himself in purple, but everywhere that color touches his skin coarse black hair starts to grow. “I’m a prince! I’m a prince!” he cries into the mirror, even as his reflection is changing, morphing, unnerving him even more. He runs his hand over two small bumps forming on the crown of his skull. Too ashamed to tell anyone, he desperately starts looking for people who understand that he really is a prince. Looking for the people who will give him jewels, put a crown on his head, let him sit on whatever could pass for a throne. And there are some who see a bit of a prince in him - everyone has a bit of prince in them, after all. But the hint of a tail worries him, and the bumps on his head are growing and hardening. His shame starts to turn him into an imitation, desperately turning tattered purple linens into a costume, making fake jewels out of lint and glue and stolen food dye, creating scepters out of toilet paper rolls. And he has to hide himself more and more, hide his increasingly claw-like hands, cover every inch of his skin growing rough, dark hair. He can’t smile too much because his teeth are lengthening and sharpening themselves into points. And his eyes have become ravenous, searching out anyone who sees a bit of prince in him, ready to suck every last drop of that belief from them. But he doesn’t really believe them anymore. How can they not see the horns behind the tinfoil crown? He’s weary now. “I’m a prince” he echoes hollowly, looking at himself in the mirror. I don’t even know what he sees now. Monster or prince or monster or prince or monster or prince or monster or prince? Whatever happened to the little boy? Did he disappear entirely? Is he in there somewhere?

Enough. Fairy tales aside. I crawl into bed and turn off the light and realize – I was in love with a monster.

Nothing's lamer than posting song lyrics in a blog. But whatever...

I heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift, the baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof, you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne, she cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Maybe I have been here before, I know this room; I have walked this floor, I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch, love is not a victory march, it's a cold and its a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

There was a time you let me know whats really going on below, but now you never show it to me, do you? (and)
Remember when I moved in you; the holy dark was moving too, and every breath we drew was Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu----jah

Maybe there's a God above, and all I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
And its not a cry you can hear at night, its not somebody who's seen the light, its a cold and its a broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu--jah

Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelu---u---jah

(As usual, it's better with the music. The Rufus Wainright version is here, and the Jeff Buckley version is here)

Or c.) keeps the doctor away

I am vaguely interested in trying a picture a day thing to see if it either a.) helps me become a better photographer or b.) illuminates my life in some profound and unexpected way. So here is the first photo (which was actually taken a few weeks ago, but I think it is important to start out faking the whole endeavor). We will see how it goes for a couple of weeks and then evaluate the whole process.

I know you're excited.

To my loyal readers (all 3 of you)

I am too newly-in-love to do anything as mundane as write in a blog. I am just too busy tying up my lover and eating chicken wings. My apologies. I know reading my blog brought light and joy into your world, a world devoid of marvelous and luminous ideas like those provided by my writing. Unfortunately, until my world equilibrates, you will have to find a way to meet your luminosity needs with inferior grade, non-Wendy-produced luminosity. Cheers.

Lovity love love love

I heart Mystery; Reason, not so much.

Um, SoulMates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship by Thomas Moore is surpisingly good and strangely reassuring. I remember when it was very popular I was a young, cynical bookseller, who mocked self-help books, particularly those having to do with relationships, and was wary of anything involving the word "soul." And now it is exactly what I want to be reading. Plus, I only paid a dollar for it - Yeah Half-Price Books!

"All intimate relationships require some degree of magic, because magic, not reason and will, accomplishes what the soul needs."

"The heart is a mystery - not a puzzle that can't be solved, but a mystery in the religious sense: unfathomable, beyond manipulation, showing traces of the finger of God at work"

"The soul doesn't have to know what is going on in life. It doesn't need interpretations, explanations, or conclusions, but it does require musing, reverie, consideration, wonder, and exploration."

Text message that made me so happy I wanted to explode into a million pieces

"In miami. i'll bring you home a dolphin"

potential

I think I was in love with your potential.

Real or imagined