Almost two years after the fact, I still revisit poems she sent me via email, and still ponder whether or not these were manipulation or sincere expressions of her feelings at the time.
Not nearly as cryptic as those she tended to post on her
blog, they were part of a poetry conversation that began when we were still on
good terms with each other, before she felt the need to disguise her messages
(if indeed the later poems posted on her blog were actually part of a conversation
at all.)
This series of poems were part of an exchange that we
conducted in April 2012, and I have gone back and forth about them ever since,
wondering if these were simply part of a web of deception (her trickling up) or
an honest expression of affection. Even at the time, I had concluded that they
were just too good to be true. Now, in retrospect, I wonder if some or all were
a kind of warning, in an attempt to caution me about what we were about to fall
into, and I – too enamored and confused at the time – did not pick up on these
warnings.
One of the last of these poems, sent to me on April 18,
2012, recounted her reaction to intimacy we had engaged in, and in some ways,
resembles a poem she later posted to her blog concerning another lover whose
intimacy she claimed was good enough to die for.
In the poem, she talked about waking at 4 a.m., head still
filled with traces of the previous night’s conversation with me, thoughts that
brought up to semi consciousness, and the realization that I would be arriving
that morning and she had not yet showered.
She said her body reflected her anxiety – her stomach in an
uproar of panic thinking that I would arrive before she was ready
strangely she had been ready for this at least from the
second she'd met me and her biggest internal struggle was this suppressed her
past disappointments and focus herself on getting a shower she needed
just in case -- meaning
that she was already anticipating what would happen.
the word “came” has multiple meanings here
I wish he had she writes though he did and there it was an i
selfish because he didn't
this bit of confusing retrospect feels exactly what she
expects and what she wants and whether she would be disappointed if what she
really wanted failed to transpire
but of course in this point of the poem she says she's
getting ahead of herself though the sexual innuendos are too obvious to ignore
like bait on a fish hook I could not resist
she had set her alarm only it went off 3 minutes before I texted her to tell
her I was on my way
I'm 2 minutes away I had texted
she bolted up thinking she was not ready and said to herself
through mentally meant for me please wait
then again in an internal she tells herself that I have to look her in her eyes
and tries to reassure herself saying that I am only there to hold her and then
tells herself keep telling yourself that cub
the illusion here leads too expectations of sex and again in
retrospect possibly where the whole thing went wrong. it might have been better
in the long run if we had kept celibate
though she makes it clear here that was not possible at
pointed out in a much more reason poem she becomes what others expect her to
become and we become users and abusers even when we start out with the best
intentions
but it is clear even in the early parts of this poem sex will
transpire or at least she hoped it would
the use of Cub only makes the manipulation seem more obvious
fitting into mythology of mentor and cub that she had already established and
of course makes me wonder if perhaps she had penned a similar poem for our
former temporary boss with whom she also had a cub meant a relationship
this segways into next stanza where she seems to be telling
me what I wanted to hear again adapting to the rule of a golem who becomes what
we expect from her
she doesn't stop there
She says all she could do is breathe then the rhythm of it
slowed becoming miraculously endearing at which point she claimed all these
thoughts of me made her wet the fabric of her sleep pants which she asked if
they were sexy enough and then ask herself why she was thinking that
she tried to avoid the inevitable kiss, soft yet in sync with hers, desperate
yet not needy instead “wanted” a word she repeats twice and the second time in
capital letters
then she shifts into hyperbole similar to a later poem in
which he spoke about how she had made love to someone in which the sex was good
enough to die for
she described our interaction as like forces of Earth pushed
together magnetizing our bodies.
needless to say back then I ate this up as she poured honey
all over my ego
then she said I touched her in places she wanted yet tried
to deflect for my sake but ultimately we could not avoid it
God or whatever resides above help us, she wrote, forgive
what ever it is we were about to bark upon
this somewhat reflects the idea that she has conscience and that there is some
sense of responsibility in this even if we are both spiraling out of control at
that moment
she of course hit on the Crux of my dilemma back then (and
perhaps even now) this sense of it all spiraling out of control and how lost my
rational mind became as the more primitive side began to take ove, and I came
to a point where I was willing to give her whatever she asked for and do
whatever she wanted
this scared the crap out of me as my rational brain trapped
in some remote corner unable to act or bring me back to control
she said her heart pounded in her ears and how badly she
wanted me to be within her, with her, moving in her and she spread wide open and she let it happen
why she asked I don't. do. This.
she said it was impossible and it was gut-wrenching not to
take the next step
and here she used an odd phrase saying she had to taste the
town she lived in while I tasted her, her skin, her smell, her sound, her lips.
and here she made another odd referral claiming her career
flashed before her eyes. perhaps fearing that having a relationship with a
co-worker risk her plans to trickle up.
then she made reference to my marriage
heaven forbid she
should ever find out, she wrote
looking back after 2
years this seems to have put her in the same dilemma she got in early last year
when she was tempted to get involved with a married man and eventually did and
like the later poem she finds justification if more than just an affair of the
mind.
“if you deny a man his pleasure you deny a man his
obligation to seek it out in other places,”she wrote, knowing even then it was
her justification and had nothing to do with her needs
She again used the word Cub
again we come to the concept of her becoming whatever other
people want and in some ways losing herself in the process
having now seen her go through this same conflict twice, I
wonder if it is something she struggles with every time, this moral conflict
she later came to abandon reading herself with a concept of fair and unfair
even right or wrong and hence again of a conflict of conscience
the poem takes another odd reference “not in the hole but in
the whole” which I interpret as meaning it is not just about sex but about the
feelings between two people overall
“but you're already there,” she wrote. “ou've been there you
will be it's inevitable and greater than us individually.”
which means we can't control it and things will go there
despite any reservations we might have
but what do we do she asks
then she takes a step back from the cerebral and into the physical, unable to
believe she has come so close and that this can happen ,because with each
thrust, with each circle of my fingers, her mouth, feeling my skin pressed
against hers , her face buried into, my neck and the possibility of her own
climax and how this never happens and how she wanted it to happen again.
and then in conclusion she seems to allude to an earlier
poem she wrote about me in which he posted on her blog and later removed when
she said “don't try to save me” only in this poem she writes “please save
yourself.”
two years later looking back, I think that she had already
moved on from me and that this poem representative something that scared her as
much as it scared me, being out of control and ultimately more than just
working out something and that involves real feelings and real emotions that
did not fit in her plans to trickle up.
what transpired between us she did not expect and not
necessarily wanted and showed that she felt just a bit guilty about it all.
while this is supposition of course and possibly the results
of having read so many of her other poems over the last 2 years
at the end of the day I think she wanted it but didn't want
it; she wanted the good feeling but not the guilt
