53. arterial spray

i only stop when i know i’ve had enough.
i guess i haven’t had my fill just yet.

you’ve gone to france, as you always do. your second life, i call it, but i dont blame you: that’s what a lifetime of living with parents who are teachers does to you. four weeks this time; it’ll be five the next or six, or whatever. but i’ve stopped counting the days. i learnt to live without salting my wounds.

Y went camping with his blonde, though she’s not blonde now but rather a seductive red. they’ve been together months now. it’ll be a year soon. october, i think.
he was meant to come back yesterday, but his phone was off. i called him twice. twice is always my limit.
i know i’ll call him again.

X is just an ex. we speak sporadically on msn and i’ve not been on the computer for days. i just couldn’t face the lonely screen staring in my face. i wanted physical contact, the sound of someone’s, anyone’s voice reverbrating in my eardrums.
and i read books. sartre, “streetcar named desire” and anais nin with her erotica. that put me down, but then, i wanted to be put down. sometimes there comes a point in our lives when we can no longer continue to believe in what we are believing until we see what else there is to see.

then there was Z. another reunion. he called me just now. for no reason. he didn’t say so, but then he rarely says a lot. he’s coming back from wales today. he was away for a week, but what more is there to it? it was another failed lesson in love for him, but i know i’m not the one to teach him.
in the end of all ends, i love you.

and i met your ex too on the days. that was fun. hurt me like crazy but it had to be done.
somewhere in between “the spy in the house of love” and “the age of reason”, i’d lost my wits. literature has a way of doing that to you.
i needed to see her. 
i needed to feel the arterial spray of your past on my face. 

let her do her worst i thought and damn, she tried her best.

39. loving a lie

oh yes, last night was great. i love the way life works you know: on the night you were away, X was told about you and me.
poor boy.
what sort of friends kick you when you’re down? evidently, his.

i heard you have a new boyfriend.
you used to mention his name so much.

and so what if i talked to him about you?  so what if i talked to you about him?
i tried to show you people the whole of me and not the parts you wanted to see. i wanted to prevent you from loving a lie. who knows how i fared? maybe you still are.

but i won’t lie. i never have and i won’t lie to you now – i still give a damn about what’s going on in his life and i never want to let go of this translucent thread between him and me, spanning like a spider’s web into realms of nothingness.
me and X, we don’t see eye to eye, we don’t speak on the phone, we barely exchange a word electronically, but i still don’t want to let go of this remnant. the remnant of my past that lingers like a memory of rich perfume in the cold night air. because there were good times. there were.

and i guess that’s selfish of me, and i guess i’m weak, but i never asked for forgiveness, just acceptance, so when he asks and you need to be gone, why are you still here? and i reply because i still care, i need you to believe me that it’s you i want, not him.

19. i live it. so hate me.

if you only just asked me why i do it, i’d have told you it was out of insecurity.
if you asked me to stop, i’d say that  i couldn’t, though i tried.
if you begged me to stop hurting you… i’d break apart.

and the world is full of ifs, but there are facts too.
Y and X and Z and you, it seems, are not enough for me.
it only seems, because i don’t really know. it seems, because there’s a new actor on the stage. and i don’t know him much, but he can raise the butteflies in my stomach. and we flirted, maybe even courted, a little bit today. in front of you. and i thought your heart would break, but i couldn’t stop it, i couldn’t not laugh at every joke he said or smile at him like i smile at you.

so hate me.

and sometimes i wish you would. but you don’t, because you love me. you don’t because you’re better than me. but then again, is that really true? or are you holding on because you’re scared to let go?

if i were to tell you that i’ll never be yours, will you still be there in the morning, smiling at me, carrying my folders, love radiating in every gesture?
would you still want to hold me and never let go?
would you understand and accept me as i am, knowing that the day will come when i will leave the nest you’ve made me and fly away into another’s arms?

and i can’t put it into words, but i’ve found a poem that does.
it’s not mine, i just wish it was. and i love it.
i live it.

have a read. love it too.
but don’t live it please, cos i’m not as strong as you.

i couldn’t take you leaving me.
i’d  be the first to leave you.

—————————————-

I Scandalize Myself

I must tell my father
that the only man for whom “desire shattered me”
looked exactly like him,

and tell my friends
that I have different pictures of myself,
all true, all me,
that I will distribute among them one at a time.

I must tell my lover,
“Be grateful for my infidelities.
Without them
I wouldn’t have waited all this time
to discover the exceptional pause in your laugh.”

As for me
I am almost certain
that I scandalize myself
to hide behind it.

Iman Mersal

and that’s the poem. don’t you just love it?
don’t you just?