Beneath the Bright Moon

The moon is full and I am empty, but not empty. More, I feel empty in a place that was once full, and I am looking for what is lost, or may never have been there in the first place.
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Standing by the river, I watch it flow, swift, swollen, dark mysteries silver beneath the bright moon. I am silver beneath the bright moon. Alone and silver.

I wonder where you are, beneath this same bright moon. Are you in the deep wood, dancing with shadows? Or do you glide along pathways of light, beside this same river, across the water where I cannot see?

I miss you, Lord of my Desire, Lord of my Dance, of my Song, of my Inner Fire. From one life to the next have we been together, so where are you in this here and now?

I am waiting here, beneath the bright moon, her cool light against my fevered skin a blessing, a promise, but her whisper soft touch is not what I crave.

I crave you, Lord of my Desire, Lord of my Dance, of my Song, of my Inner Fire. I crave your fingers trailing liquid heat along my flesh, your kisses arousing and chilling me outward from my Center, your warmth along my length as we swim in the river, ardor briefly cooled by the silken caress of the sweet water beneath the bright moon. I crave you sliding along me, slick, wet, fitted to me so perfectly, half made whole beneath the bright moon.

I am lost here, beside the river, lost without you, able only to flounder in the shallows without you, alone and lost beneath the bright moon.

Hurry, Lord of my Desire, Lord of my Dance, of my Song, of my Inner Fire...hurry and find me again.

Love, Crave

I love a man I should not. He is not my husband. I have no right.

I love a man I should not. He is tall, solid, warm, low, and rumbly. I love him secretly, when I am alone, at night, in dark, quiet places.

I've written of him in other places, to other people. If words could purge him from me, entirely, cleanly, make him gone, or never was, I would write of him tirelessly to be free of him.

Because I love him, and I should not. It is folly. He's tender, gentle, kind, smart, and attentive. I love him painfully strong, big, overwhelming.

I don't want to love him. I want to love the man I married. I despair of this love.

He loves me back, clings like a cockle bur to me even when he isn't there, reminds me with his scent on the breeze - pine, smoke, something indefinably him.

When he is not there, I crave his heat, surrounding me, melting the ice I so carefully layered around my heart to ward him off.

When he is not there, I crave his presence, nestled against me in the night, skin to skin, feeling him along the length of me, his breath a mantra in the dark.

When he is not there, I crave his kisses, soft, sweet, insistent, passionate, toe-curling, breath-stealing kisses. Grown-up kisses. Kisses that leave me stunned, delighted, feeling well and truly loved.

When he is not there, I search for him, desperate for a few stolen moments...and when he is there, I run from him, craven, craving....

It's a hell of a thing when you're haunted by a dream, a figment, a construct of the imagination; when someone who isn't there, never was, fills the emptiness, completes the spirit in a way the man you married can't, won't, doesn't even know is there.

Choking On It

There are tears swimming along the edges of my eyes. They sting, they make my vision blur at odd moments, and they are the suspended promise of sweet, salty release, relief. I can't seem to shed them.

I don't dare shed them.

I'm afraid that once begun, they will never stop, or not until I have wept, and wept, and flooded every valley, sent the small creatures running for the peaks, forced people to swim or paddle canoes to rooftops, wait for rescue, all while the torrent continues.

They're caught in my throat, making it hard to swallow...although perhaps I am better off not swallowing them, as I am told that swallowing sorrow, anger, unspoken words causes cancer in the stomach, as does swallowing any evil thing.

I feel as though I am choking on them, the struggle hampered by the ligature of my life, of the lines wrapped around me, binding me to a place I do not want to be but lack the courage to cut myself free from.

So here I sit with this unutterable something lodged in my mind, my eyes, my heart, my throat, and I'm choking on it.

Pulse

I used to stare, with a kind of hunger, at the place in my wrist where the vein is close to the surface, a slight trace of blue, just raised enough to provide a texture to the topography of the anatomy there.


I remember when I was a little girl, I would trace the veins on my mother's hands, push them down only to see them spring right back up again. I saw lettering in their lines, would turn her hand over, and over again, to trace them with my small finger. I wanted to know why they were blue, why they were placed as they were, what they were for.


And then, when I was older, darker, I would stare at the veins in my wrist. I knew exactly what they were for. I would place my fingers just so, like nurses do, and feel my own heart, steady, certain, unfaltering.

Sometimes, I wished I felt as steady as my heart, as sure of each beat, of each step. I wondered, if I ran that cold, fine steel along their length, could I be certain of what followed?

Can one be a vampire of one's own self? Curious, seeking sustenance from one's own veins? The stories tell of an ecstasy that is coupled with the act of exsanguination - they make it sound so sexy, so sensual.

I think they have no idea what the sting, the sharp bite, the slow drain, the lassitude, the burn and numbness, the eventual fade into darkness is like. I think the hunger that one may feel for one's own blood isn't the same as that storybook hunger - it's deeper, more urgent, more visceral and less quantifiable. It's old, older than the tales of creatures creeping in the shadows, feeding on their fellow humans, bathing in their blood, committing horrific acts of starvation and survival.

I used to place two fingers gently on my neck, feel the blood rushing just below the surface, primal, powerful, the very essence of life. I'd count, one, two, three, four, constant, a living metronome, steadier than my spiritual self, internal self, felt. I was shaky, clinging to the semblance of normalcy, desperate for someone, something, to reach out, gather me up, place me back on firm, more realistic ground that the fantastic landscape my own mind had painted over reality, but my heart...my heart had it's own agenda and kept beating, steady, reassuring, even in my wildest moments.

My son traces the veins in my hands. He turns them over, and over again, finding patterns, touch light as a butterfly's kiss. He knows what they are for, why they are there, why they are blue, and what it means when we press our fingers just so and feel that concurrent rhythm, his and mine.

Cameras in the Closet*

I see you, seeing me. You think I don't, but I am wise to your ways, and I know where the lenses hide, behind mirrors that do not quite reflect as they should, in light fixtures, and other places you think so clever, but my paranoia is more than a match for your intelligence.

I hear you hearing me. You think I don't, but I am wise to your ways, and I know where the microphones hide, in electric outlets, behind the large paintings on the wall, and in other places you think so clever, but my paranoia is more than a match for your trifling toys.

I am wise to you, and yet I continue as though you are not there, because I do not want you to know I am wise. If I keep on as you think I should, you won't come seek me out, perhaps take me away, sequester me.

I hear the clicking, the whirring, the static crackle on the phone, and I know what you're doing, but I don't care, because as long as you don't know I know - I am safe.

*It's not all real...sometimes it's just imagination. Or is it??

The Vexatious Voice

There is a vexatious voice that natters, natters, natters at me all day long. It sounds, sometimes, like the woman (not my mother) who raised me, is woven into most of my childhood memories. Her voice is sharp, her tone aggrieved or angered or irritated or judging or anything but the loving voice I craved, the acceptance I strove for, always reaching, reaching, for some untouchable goal of her desiring, always falling short.

Sometimes, though, it is her cadence, her speech patterns, but my own voice I hear, nattering, nattering, nattering away at me all day long. Nothing I do is done well enough, nothing I do is right. I am too fat, too stupid, too ugly and undesirable, and no matter how hard I try or what anyone else may think, I will never, ever, be good enough. I married my husband in part because the voice told me no one else would ever want me, and I am with him still in part because she tells me I'm all used up and no one else will want me now.

It's toxic, the vexatious voice, nattering, nattering, nattering away at me all day long. It wears me down. Sometimes I want to scream, just scream, something primal from the gut, from the bottoms of my feet, let the rage rise up and obliterate the voice, or at least drown it out for a short time, a small respite.

Nattering, nattering, nattering, all day long...

Sometimes I see them, the things prowling just beyond ken, back and forth, back and forth, walking in the darkness that has teeth. Here in my cube of light, I am blinded to the shadows, but I know they're there, waiting for some poor unwary fool to stumble, fall, falter - and they'll pounce, the things with claws, low growls that I feel in my bones, a hunger so deep it seeps over the edges and into me.

Sometimes, I see them, tricks of light and shadow, but mostly shadow, flitting across the moon, blotting the stars, soaring through the darkness that has teeth. They howl so high and piercing, my bones tremble, and small creatures huddle in their dens, wrapped in fear, hope, and the knowledge that the sun will rise tomorrow, until one day it does not.

Sometimes I see them, faint glowing eyes staring in at me as I stare out at them, at an impasse, respecting the boundaries, the chiaroscuro that divides me from the darkness that has teeth. I wonder what it would be like to let them in, to offer myself up to their dark feast, to feel their fangs sink deep into my flesh, let them drink deep, slake their thirst, tear body from soul, and I shudder, pant, feel my heart race - from fear or delight, I cannot say.

Sometimes I yearn for the darkness that has teeth.