My Pedigree Hails From Mechanics

Thud thud kerthunk kerthunk
The sounds the old clunker of an engine -
the remains of my oil-rotted heart beating
so heavily in my chest as I hoist your words
from a piece of heavy machinery,
trying to dissect, to discern, to theorize and postulate
what exactly I did wrong.

Your heart is purring like the engine
in a well-maintained collector's
fifty-nine Cadillac.
The noise and rumble is entirely different
than the fading beats of the Model-T
that takes up long-empty garage space
in my chest cavity.

I imagine God is much like a small boy
with a set of toy cars to play with
and brightly painted inter-locking track
with which he plays out our lives
as nothing more than a game,
setting us up on a miniature collision course,
our two cars humming for disaster at every turn
and squealing and giggling with delight as we slam together
at the most awkwardly constructed loop on the course.

And on the worst of days,
I feel like you've resigned me to my fate
and retired me to the junkyard
for people to pick over my body for parts,
varied and sundry amusements and accouterments of days gone by.
Hands of strangers poking and prodding,
wondering if my leather interior is real.
Of course it is.

And an oil leak that will never cease
keeps pouring out from under my hood,
lubrication flows freely
as you rev my engine,
taking me out of neutral and all the way into overdrive.
Motor mount tears fall to the asphalt,
as you drive on without me.

Love Note From a Suicide

Don't ask, just don't. I've been channeling the late great E.A. Poe as of late and I've always been a morbid person. Emotions bubble up when you don't want them to and don't always come in the form you wish they would. I don't want to have to put a suicide disclaimer on every piece of work I write that's morbid or from the perspective of someone dead and long gone - so let it be said now: I am not suicidal, I am not contemplating suicide. I write what comes to me. And as the light shone golden upon the trees of this small Appalachian town, as I sat in the car and felt the arid breeze upon my face, the words struck with full force. And this is the result.


"Love Note From a Suicide."

Here I sit upon a ledge
looking down so far,
my hands are torn from gripping the edge,
I wonder when I will fall.
I fell not once, but twice for you
my efforts gone unseen;
I fell and dropped and climbed again
among countless other deeds.
And now I sit on edge again,
wondering how far I'll go
to keep your eye and have your heart,
a love I will never again know.

I jump again and laugh as I fall,
floating so free above.
I speak these words to you my dear,
now on the wings of a dove.
Listen so closely to the wind,
and feel my heartfelt shame,
the rains will come soon to this place
to wash away my name.
All that's left of me is yours my love,
floating on the skies,
I regret the words I never spoke:
whispering them only in cries.

Let go of your ledge and jump with me,
falling opposite: up to the sky.
Feel my laughter and hear my pain
carried by wings on high.
I loved you then,
I love you still,
but now you shy away.
Never forget the words we spoke
upon that heat-sickened day:
"Never another,
Never again:
This spot in my heart is all yours."
Words you take for granted now,
my monument stuck in the ground.

You were never brave enough,
to storm those seas of blood:
the battle you said you'd wage for me:
a battle you'd never begun.
Let it be known that even now,
as I hover above this land,
my heart was never aught but yours,
Yours, my sad little man.

Grieve not now at the loss of me,
the love you gave away,
Feel nothing but the heart of she,
she who begs you to stay.
The world is no less vibrant now
without me in your life.
Spare me not another thought,
go home and comfort your wife.

I never meant to fall for you,
although I'm glad I did.
I didn't mean to fall so far
that I fell right off the grid.
I fell so fast, and broke so hard,
there's nothing left but dust:
Never forget, my dear little muse,
I left you because I must.

It wasn't my grip that loosed the edge,
I didn't want that end,
But the thought of our broken pledge,
made my will take bend.
Without resolve and the comfort of you,
I slowly lost my mind.
All that's left to speak of now
are butterfly wings frozen in time.

Mourn not for me, my lion dear,
remember deep in your heart
the love we had was always doomed
and fated from the start.
Cry not for me, hold onto she,
the one you've been looking for.
I could never have given you that,
although I offered you more.

Fear not my darling at my demise
you only must turn your head
turn your ear on a warm summer night
and listen to the skies:
There I whisper and there I remain
so memorialized by the Gods,
my feelings for you remain unchanged,
though my body rots beneath sod.

So long as I lived, I promised you
I would try to find a way:
I failed my goal and I let go
But I still love you all the same.

I'm Not.

If you were to peel back the layers of who I am,
you would not want to know me.
Flay flesh from muscle,
rend muscle from bone,
tear through the viscera
and what would you find?
Like a dog's stomach on X-ray
a misshapen mass of
errata that should not exist.
Bits of brick and mortar
stone and sand
the crushed shells of those
who tried to get inside.
A writhing, dark mass
of depression that just won't
be calmed by antacids.
A small light spot on the X-ray film,
is it a mistake, a problem with the film?
Or is it hope? Clawing forth from the gaping maw?
Who is to say
That you ever really knew me at all?
There's only one way to find out.
Grab a scalpel and go.

It Was Only Because I Loved You

You:
You are the Arthur to my Morgana. You are the promises broken and the skies turned gray, heavy with clouds. My tears burst forth, oozing a thick, pendulous sadness that lingers in the air around me. What am I to say to you? What left is there to say, but to recall better times of bitter memories with a sorrow so sweet it tastes like cherry cordial on my lips?

Howling to the moon in anguish, I am an elm tree on the exterior - smooth bark and twisting trunk, holding steady at the root, trying to keep it together because I'm just as much of a danger to you as you are to me. Inside, rotting away, picked at little by little by these termite-like thoughts. I am not as strong and steady and rooted as I may seem: A caress just as well as a kick could knock me to the ground.

And how can I say this to you? My lion, my pride? How can I play these words off my tongue so as not to offend, so as not to cause you any more agony than I already have? How do I say these words that I have said not once, not twice, but so many times before? How can I make these wishes true, how can I make a spark come alive, when you want nothing more to do with me than a living body to warm your bed on the cold nights when my soul howls like the coyotes, a plaintive plainsong that echoes through the corridors of my very being, rattling me? How can I say this all to you when your eyes lay elsewhere?

Not once, but many times, I have felt your hands upon me. Not once, but a thousand times have you whispered words in my ears that could make a courtesan blush and a priest bow in humility. Not once, but forever, you promised I would have a spot in your heart - yes, a spot, my love. Something to be scrubbed at time and time again, a blemish on an otherwise perfect life - a spot that won't come out no matter what bedamned way you try.

And maybe I did myself in - maybe I fell too hard, too fast. Can you blame me? You're so full of yourself sometimes, your life so full of promise as you look onward past me, toward her, toward your new life, that you fail to see what you leave behind: and listen close, I will admit this only once - you leave behind the saddened little girl who is frustrated, hurt, angry and confused because she is being denied something that worked so well, when she tried to behave so good.

In moving on, you leave me behind - clutching the tattered strings of a tapestry quickly unweaving around me, the threads pulling and bursting as you walk and run faster, and farther, away from the life we could have had -- had only one of us been brave, had only one of us spoken up. But which of us did that burden fall to? I cannot say, I cannot lay fault. I won't.

My eyes well up as I write this....you're always so near and it stings and pricks at me, my blood buzzing in my ears like a hive of angry bees. You don't even know what we could have been, because you wouldn't even try.

And now I must let go - I know I do. I guess, somewhere, somehow, I always knew I would. I always knew, in the back of my heart, in the back of my head, that you would find any reason that I would be unsuitable for you. Wrong age, wrong weight, wrong religion, wrong touch, wrong love, wrong feeling, wrong everything and anything. It could have been anything and you would have found a reason -- because I am not the one you wanted and I never was.

I'm just sorry I ever allowed myself to admit that I wanted you in my life in a way you would never understand, with a maddening desire you only felt the most barbed, poisoned tip of. I'm sorry that I let myself open to you, feinted when I should have parried, and never ever struck back. I opened parts of myself to you that no one 'fore or since or again will have...the more esoteric pieces of my being and more of the physical ones as well. I offered you the world, but the world I offered wasn't well enough - and I can understand that, I suppose.

I remember those words you whispered in my ear, those tearful moments of confessions, of words not wanting to be spoken but pouring out anyway. Deer crowding the highway, you confessed. And so did I. And those words I can't take back haunt me, because if I could, I would steal them and horde them away, a dragon with a treasure in the most cliched manner. But I am left empty - in heart, in body. My soul aches. It all aches.

My heart is sliced to pieces now, ribbons to sway in the chilled wind that forces its way through my veins, ribbons floating on air where I used to harbor so much warmth and love. I'm sorry for the hurt I caused......it was only because I loved you.

In Reply To The Nature of Love

Everyone has different definitions of that ephemeral concept of love. What is it to you? What is it to me? A member of my tribe, that is to say, my extended family of choice, recently made an eloquent post reflecting her purview on love. And while I agree with many things, I feel that for me, they need further understanding. As I've been charged with the challenge of writing in my journal every day, I will attempt to answer that (quite appropriately) mercurial question: What is love?

I love without thinking. I do not love without feeling. My heart sings a song to those I love, in echo of a song heard in their heart. We, as a society, do not love enough: not anymore, and not as we should. We are afraid, I think, of trusting ourselves to one another. We are afraid of being hurt.

I am not afraid of the hurt that comes with love: all great things come attached with a price, and often that price is not realized until much later. Is the cost of loving someone far too great? For me, the answer is no. I've almost been destroyed by the darker edge of love. But I've been nurtured to life by it far more. It's a simple cost-benefit analysis: Is the cost far more than I am willing to pay? It has never been so for me, but even I have my limits at time.

For those just joining -- perhaps new readers, perhaps classmates, perhaps long lost friends, hopefully a literary agent or two -- I feel there are certain details of my life that bear mentioning in order for me to fully speak out on this topic. Some of you might prickle at the thought, but I am polyamorous. I believe it is fully possible for some people to love more than one person in a romantic manner without harming any involved. I love my husband. I love my boyfriend. My husband loves me. He loves his girlfriend. They all weave the rich tapestry that is my life - and for each of their roles in my life, I could not be more grateful.

Have you ever learned to go fishing, reader? Perhaps a kindly figure in your life - a grandfather, as was the case with me - sat you down and told you to be patient. To wait until that fish came to you. And to slowly, patiently crank the reel until the fish was in your hands. You will hit snags along the way, you will catch your line on a million things. Unlike so many tired analogies, I do not liken lovers to fish (although some have, to be sure, been pretty fishy). Rather, love is the elusive fish we're seeking to catch. My grandfather always told me to fish out of need, never for sport, and to honor the gift that the world was giving me, the continued gift of life. Love is not sport, and love fills a very real need in our lives as humans. Love sustains us. Before this turns into a Beatles song, I must also add that love can destroy us also. There are fish in the world that can kill you with a mere bite. There are loves that will do the same.

Like the scales on that self-same fish, there are many who would liken love to a multi-faceted jewel. Many who would seek to put love on a pedestal. But I speak most assuredly when I say that love is not some grand thing to be admired from afar: It is real, it is earthy, it is not always pretty and sometimes it is practical. Love has caring, adoration, passion, lust, desire, pleasure, enjoyment. It also has jealousy, possession, pain, heartache, hatred, disgust and hurt. Love is these things, and love is more. There is an abundance of literature on love and its many facets. I'd be hard pressed to write about love and speak all of these things in earnest. For some, as it is for me, love isn't so easy to speak about, but it is easy to show.

One of the questions asked the most of me about my relationships is how I deal with jealousy. The simple thing is: I am aware of myself and I strive to be aware of my partners. I seek to keep the feelings of hurt from happening before those feelings rise to the surface. I try to smooth out conflict before it begins. By and large, I am not jealous. Love multiplies. I cannot say the same for the money in my bank, perhaps this is why I am a writer by trade. Love sings out to love, and it begins and begats more love. I enjoy seeing the look in my husband's eyes when he hears from his girlfriend. My tears well up - not with anger, but with pride - to see them together, because I truly find love and beauty there. I do not have a problem with physical affection between them while I am present - simply because it is one aspect to the love they share. And why should something so esteemed, so beautiful, so transient in nature - why should that be wrong? Why should I begrudge that? Who *AM* I to begrudge that? It is not my place - because love, in its many forms, is always beautiful. And one small act of love can, and often does, change the world. Even in small ways.

This is not to say that I am never jealous of anything or anyone - I am not a saint. But I recognize where my jealousy stems from, and I am proactive in my attempts to soothe the ruffled feathers of that prickly bird. My own jealousy often stems from seeing real or perceived inadequacies in my own relationships. A covetousness that I cannot control because perhaps I see something I once had, something I lost, or something I crave and may have never had to begin with. This is something I, and I alone, have control over. If I feel I have lost something, I take steps to find it. I would do no less for a tangible thing in my life, why sit and stare helpless like a dopey damsel? If I've lost it, I'll get it back.

If it's something I never had to begin with, I'll turn those bristled feelings of hurt into thanks - if I never had it to begin with, and I am jealous to see it manifest, then it was something I never knew I needed. And if I did not know I needed it, how could I have expected my partner to know it was needed? By and large, with few exceptions, my lovers are not psychic. My relationships aren't some mystical thing, existing in a wholly perfect bubble - they come with lots of time, patience and COMMUNICATION. It can get ugly. It is NEVER pretty and it is usually boring or mundane. But it is necessary.

I love without question and without apology. I strive to love in the light of day, and not hide things about in the twilight hours. Why should I? It's not conducive to anything and I've burned and been burned by more than one clandestine relationship. I'd rather be exposed and laid bare for the world, and my partners, to see. Part of that, perhaps, comes from being a submissive, masochistic exhibitionist - it's as much a part of my nature as anything else - perhaps it is just my understanding of the world. But the core parts of my being shape my understanding of the world, and those two things are so inextricably linked, it doesn't much matter where it comes from - so long as my heart agrees. And it does.

The need to posses someone is not my nature - love is shown through actions, freely given. People ask how it is possible that I can love my husband - people whose sole exposure to love is via monogamy. People speculate how I could "let him do this" to me, as if I were unaware and uninvolved in the prospect of him dating other women - they are often quite unaware that the change in our relationship style was MY idea, and both of our choices. They ask, quite rudely, if I would like to strangle whoever he is involved with. I'm ever sorry to disappoint the bloodthirsty masses, but I've met his girlfriend. She's an absolute pleasure to be around and a delight to spend time with. He worries about me absconding with her, not the other way around. And why not? She's a delightful woman and what's not to love? But to hurt and possess, to conquest for sport, is not my "thing."

Case in point: I know my husband loves me. People place too much on the legal aspect of our marriage. Whatever perceived legal obligation aside, he is not chained to me, unable to ever live a life of his own. There are times when the life you lead with a partner outweighs the ties that bind: that's why there's such a thing as divorce. When we attended our first party, he challenged me to finish a very acidic, fruity alcoholic drink. I have an ulcer and I've had stomach problems since childhood. The night ended with fecal matter and vomit. Barely knowing me and out of NO obligation whatsoever, he tended to me like a family member would. He didn't blink (he may have wretched himself, from the smell of it, but who can blame him?) and he handled it with a love and grace I don't know that I would have been able to pull off. Our relationship has been filled with ugly moments - physical ailments, emotional illnesses, problems and more problems. The fact that he is still here of his own accord is proof enough for me, and should be proof enough for those self-same bloodthirsty masses who have no greater past-time than to wish my love life to go down in flames. And I don't foresee this changing.

Who do I love? Some days, everyone. Some days, no one. But who I love and how I love are not inextricably linked - I love you, unless you prove a reason I should not. And like as not, this has led to me hurting more than once. Like as not, it will happen again. But to say I regret how I love and any result of that would be a falsehood that I am not willing to swallow.

It could be summed up in five little, insignificant words: It is what it is. For anything more than that, go listen to the Beatles.