Apr
7
Giving Up The Ghost
April 7, 2005 | |
I looked so forward to our candle lit escapades.
Few and far between as they were.
And with each uncertain lapse between,
a little magic spell was cast.
I’d greet you at my door–all anxious and smiling and missing you.
Just as well this was an obvious routine which kept you safely at a distance.
Just far enough to avoid expectation or assumption.
Seemed you were good with this.
Seemed you wanted it this way.
At the time, I never thought to ask for more and that was fine.
I had no idea what "more" meant anyway.
What I did know, was that I couldn’t give myself away anymore.
I learned my lesson well.
The last thing I needed was an entanglement of the heart.
I had barely unwound myself from the last hopeful who thought to capture me.
In those days I didn’t possess the capacity to ask for more…
So I met you there.
Somewhere in between blissful midnights spent breathlessly fixed within your lingering kiss–
And the pride that stood between my heart and my head,
keeping all genuine emotion safely at bay.
I glided along like a ghost as you did.
Maybe a little less numbly than you might have imagined.
And for a short while I maintained this grey area between erratic bouts of indulgence and uncertainty.
Contemplating with each bittersweet reunion, that night may indeed be our last.
After all, we never spoke of feelings or futures or things that mattered so much.
A curious irony shared by two poets who spoke so eloquently through the pen, yet silenced so unneccesarily by real feeling of the spoken word.
Uncertainties melting on our lips between deep kisses everslow.
So I kept writing and stopped talking. I presumed you preferred it this way.
I can only imagine I proved an entertaining diversion. It stands to reason.
You caught me at a strange time in my life. Newly single yet still restrained by the entanglements post dreaded affair. Still very much wrapped up in the guilt of the aftermath.
I was reckless, both to myself and to others. I lied and masqueraded my careless pursuits with a deceivingly carefree attitude. I sought out men that would ultimately disappoint…
The ghosts. The drifters. The emotionally impenetrable.
I was convinced I deserved no better.
But the real me cringes in retrospect.
And how the hell I carried on so destructively remains a mystery.
So much time wasted, emotions repressed, love denied–This is not in my nature.
I am actually a sensitive girl. I was a good girlfriend.
I was a wife, after all.
In the end, a girl can only handle so many loosely strung together one-night-stands disguised as "romance."
Over time, rationality always wins. And sooner than later she succumbs to that gnawing feeling
of being used. I think you’ve heard this one before, so I won’t delve too deeply into the redundant.
I’m aware what I seek in a lover is only the exact amount I am willing to give. Which was not much at all,
but at the time, it was everything to me.
2 months now passed between us and you casually ask what happened? Where did I go?
I could play my usual hand and call your bluff. I could be just as coy and ask you the same …
But it’s too late for that now.
Where have I been? You could call it a mission. A return from the recklessness, away from the escape
and back to that strong girl I once was.
And although I was enamored by your charms, I felt there was so much left unshared. Like buried treasures left undiscovered–too many questions stood between us. And your elusive X that marked the spot in your heart remained intact atop unbroken ground. An invisible fortress I dared not cross. No matter how heated the moment…I knew indeed, it was just a moment. Or a string of moments. Instances left undefined
and hanging in the limbo of complacency.
2 months now passed between us and I have learned this:
Your passion was a gift I hastily devoured. And I Indulged without regret.
I Squeezed as much as you were willing to give to the very last drop–I relished it to the core.
But this disconnected bliss could not sustain a hunger for that truer, deeper need:
That bond that connects two people beyond flesh and longing and a simple something to do
for the moment.
With the spell now broken, and with my eyes wide open, I can see clearly of our fate:
I must give up the ghost who haunts so sweetly, yet makes no deeper impression than the shallow scratches
left upon the surface of my heart.
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