A Bid for Power

Exchanging notes with Aries was an intimate experience.  Although everyone knew we wrote letters no one knew what was in them.  I realize now that this small act of openness and privacy drew us further into each other.  I kept all the letters she wrote me.  I sent them back to her three years ago.  There was one letter in particular that she wrote that I miss.  We assigned ourselves the goal of writing down our feelings for each other.  Poetry is a fluid expression for me.  It’s layered with meanings both real and symbolic; much can be said with so few words it almost feels like touch.  Writing - no poetry, just plain words, transparency.  It scared me.  I don’t recall what I wrote but it doesn’t matter, what I wrote about her that one time, I wrote in my heart every day.  I read this one letter so often that taping the creases was the only way to preserve it.  If she were to handle that letter today she would note not just the tape but the diluted ink where my tears had fallen.

One day, entering their home, I made my way to the kitchen where Mary was cleaning up. She told me that Aries was upstairs waiting for me, I should go see her.  I said I wanted to be with her instead, for a while.  Mary said no and told me to go upstairs.  This was the moment our dynamic shifted.  I felt witness to something menacing, disdain with laugher muffled beneath some façade of normalcy.  It told me I no longer had a friend but an enemy.  Mary gifted me to Aries, a favour perhaps, an exchange?  If she felt she had no power over the bond Aries and I shared, this was the moment she summoned it back.  Goliath’s face was twisting with power into a smile or scowl – it didn’t’ matter, neither were good.

I made my way upstairs.

In the sanctity of the dim bedroom we left their world behind.  Here, an embryonic bliss held us.  Their troubles couldn’t penetrate this place and none could rip out the chord.

I sat on the floor

Against the wall

Knees up

And listened

You sat on your bed

Kept your head

Down

Avoiding any glances my way

You spoke

Gently

Quietly

Evenly

About so and so

And all of ‘them’

You felt overlooked

Unnoticed

I straightened up

Wondered

If you were serious

                   If this was for real

Did you truly feel -?

                   Could you believe so little of yourself?

I didn’t understand

                   You fiddled with your hands

Mesmerized by your fingers

As though they were the only thing to see

How could you agree

That you weren’t worthy of notice?

I kept still and listened

To the silence

You had stopped speaking

And I began

Seeking

For something to say

I got up from the floor

Moved away from your door

And in toward you

Closer still

So you could hear

My words

Not just words

                   But the truth

‘You don’t need to worry about them’

I spoke

You lifted your eyes and held my gaze

‘How can you not know how beautiful you are?’

My head was a in a maze

As I struggled to make you understand

‘Don’t you know?’

The look on your face was painfully beautiful

With its sad grace - it told me…no

I continued

‘I’m serious.  You have to understand

How truly bland

they are…compared to…

...no one is like you.’

You stood without a word

Opened your arms

And placed them tenderly around my neck

You silently cried

I held you

And sighed

                   Felt your tears

                            Warm on my skin

How could you not know?

That you steal the show

Every time

Was it a crime?

That I noticed

Continued on Monday June 13^th 2011

Until then, I remain yours,

Lesley

Hallelujah Heartist