Warning: The poem beneath the fold is far from safe for work.
“I will fight the spirit
With a sword in my side.”
— John Andrew Hull, The River.
(About a 3 minute read)
I remember now best your skin
I remember now best how I would lay
Belly to your back, or belly to your belly,
Rub against you like a stretching cat.
God! Your butt would make me hard then.
Your butt would always make me hard.
How many ways were there to touch your clit?
Let me count the ways.
I had them counted back then.
The accountant in me had them counted back then.
It took a couple years before you put much
Into sucking me, and you never got better
Than the first few times you tried,
But I didn’t really mind. My pleasure
Mostly came from pleasuring you.
I’m not sure today why it was that way.
I would want a full partner now.
But I got enough back then.
I can’t recall feeling dissatisfied.
I can’t recall feeling dissatisfied at all.
You so seldom told me the sex was good
And maybe that was for the best,
In your black-out, I strained all that harder.
In your black-out, I strained all the harder.
I’m ashamed to say it now,
Now that I see I should have strained anyway.
That the most decent lovers strain anyway.
Still there was that month or two
When — reasons of your own, of course — you broke
Your radio silences to report and inform
Of those trips pass warrior Mars
You were taking by then.
Trips pass warrior Mars, you said,
And all the way to Jupiter’s moons.
But by then you didn’t need to shout.
I’d learned to read your every tremble,
I’d learned to read your twists and turns,
I’d learned to read your sudden gasps,
I’d learned to read your almost screams,
I’d learned to read your rapid pants,
I’d learned to read you for your news —
Which of Jupiter’s moons you had landed on.
I got to imagining you were an orchestra.
I knew just where your sections were.
Where to touch your first violin,
Just how to start your winds,
Along with where and when to bring on
Your kettle drums.
Play her slow, play her soft, play her gentle
At the start. Know her ways, know her mind,
Know her mind so you can surprise her.
For surprise is the launch-key to her flights.
It can take a bit of cunning to be a good lover.
You made me more than a cunning lover.
You made me a better lover.
For once, I wasn’t the selfish one.
For once,
I wasn’t the selfish one.
The few who came after you,
Didn’t leave me feeling guilty
Like the many who came before.
Honestly, I have you to thank for that.
Honestly, that was you.
Things got longer by the year
We both kept losing track of time
So one night I clocked the hours.
Two hours of play and two hours of fuck.
Strange how we got so good at it,
What with me loving you,
And you not returning my love.
You not loving me in or out of bed.
Strange how we got so good at it.
Strange, that.
I knew your past, dear,
You had told me your past.
I couldn’t find it in me
To blame you for being selfish,
Not after what they’d done to you.
I saw how you gave me all you could,
And maybe even a little more.
Maybe I was thinking you deserved
Some taste of what all of us
Start out expecting our lives to be.
But I probably wasn’t thinking that.
More like something I only felt instead.
Life is never about thornless love.
Life is never about thornless love.
Life is never about thornless love.
It just doesn’t work out like that.
It never works out like that.
For anyone who is curious, I have been told by a psychiatrist and other professionals in that field that my brilliant, but maliciously abusive ex-wife Tomoko was almost certainly afflicted with Borderline Personality Disorder, most likely brought on by childhood sexual abuse. BPD is irreversible and the symptoms include volcanic anger, abrupt mood swings, issues with intimacy, and unwarranted condemnation of others. BPD in females is almost always the result childhood sexual abuse. Please do what you can to fight childhood sexual abuse.
My sister was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.
Older, she doesn’t live with us anymore.
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She’s 17, but lives with her biological father.
She’s technically a step sister.
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I’m so sorry to hear that! I know the disorder cannot be reversed, but I hope it can be better managed these days than it could a couple of decades ago.
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Erotic poem Phil, but it all fell flat when you decided to write Saturn as being nearer to the sun than Jupiter and its 69 moons. Get a map of the solar system you anti-intellectual!
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Good to see you, too. Jerk. Thanks for the help though. Actually appreciated.
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‘Life is never about thornless love.’ That line sums up everything.
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