eros, logos

Monday, February 23, 2009

one art

Sometimes it seems to me that I have spent my life in a process of discarding things, rather than acquiring them. One symbol or symptom of this is the material--It's not that I am not a sentimental person. I am. But for some reason my sentiment doesn't attach to possessions or material things. I don't have photos, for example, or photo albums. I don't have keepsakes, I travel light. This is the opposite it seems of how we usually go through life, acquiring houses, possessions...I practice losing farther, losing faster...keys and phone numbers and shoes, and mementos I meant to keep, train tickets, silly things.
I wish I did have these things sometimes, but they run through my fingers like water, like air. The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Sometimes it makes me sad, this seeming inability I have to save material things...I think it's that I dont trust them, or that I cant bear to hold them and then lose them--so i lose them myself, first, like leaving people also.

I look for you automatically in this airport, scene of so many partings and meetings for us. I cannot help expecting to find you among the expectant faces there. How long will it be, I wonder, til I cease doing this? The involuntary lift of my heart upon arrival, the drop, when I remember, you will not be meeting me this time, --and when you do, when i allow you to again, it will not be the same. Not those meetings we once had, for so long...one of us jumping the barrier and running to the other. How many times did people applaud us, when we'd stop kissing finally? I'd blush always, we couldn't look at the crowd, only each other...and then we'd hurry, to get to the car, so we could kiss again, no audience this time.

This flight, I looked out at the dear and familar country below me, where I have so recently been, the plane banks, drops, beginning its final descent...always before I'd feel my heart lift at that moment, and it did again, but then dropped with the plane. I pressed my hand against the glass, felt the coldness sink into my hand, the only clue that the air is thin and cold, though the sun was rising and beautiful.

I looked for you in the crowd, helplessly, although it was not you meeting me, but someone else. Travel farther, faster.

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Elizabeth Bishop, One Art

Labels: 2006

posted by O @ 09:37 Social bookmark this 5 comments

Monday, January 12, 2009

lift

Close the gate. How long will it take, to get to the fifth floor? Too long. But now we can kiss each other at least, as we couldn't earlier. This lift is rickety and old, and it shakes alarmingly when you press me against the back of it and kiss me. I need you. You lift me, my legs around your waist and begin to grind against me, pushing me into the wall. I feel I can't stand it, my head spins. I need your fingers on me, inside me, on my clit. Please touch me there, I know it won't take me long now. Turn me around, I love the helplessness of this position. I can feel your cock pressing against my ass. I brace my hands against the wall and push back at you, leaning into you. I tilt my ass up towards you, pleading wordlessly. One hand slowly slides into my shirt, you trace my nipple with your fingers, rolling it between them. You pull my hair, pulling my head back so that you can kiss my mouth, my throat. I whimper, as your hand leaves my nipple, running down my body, pressing me into you and also caressing me, moving lower...Don't, not here, please. The gate-- Anyone can see... but you do.

I don't want to think, and when this overtakes me I let go. I will fuck you to the edge of exhaustion and beyond, attempt to lose myself in sensual oblivion. Lift me out of myself, is what I would say, if I could speak.

I yearn for this escape from the prison of self, from grief and loss. I want to outrun grief, race it. I would outrun it if I could, even if it meant running til my heart burst.

I won't know where I am when I wake at 4, but your warmth next to me and your breathing will comfort me. I'll lie awake there for awhile listening to the city's beating heart too, muted now late. The cars move through the arteries of the streets. Rain against your window like a breath.

In your sleep you will stir and reach for me, next to you I will sink down again, seeking the oblivion of sleep now.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
Carol Ann Duffy, Prayer

My wishes now come homeward,
Their gallopings in vain,
Logic and lust are quiet,
Once more it starts to rain.
Falling asleep I listen
To the falling London rain.
Louis MacNiece , London Rain

Labels: 2006, eurydice, london, shipping forecast