Ever loved someone
who challenged
everything
you thought was true
pushed every button
you never knew
you had and then
still
you could forgive them
anything

all the while
you couldn’t leave
but you wouldn’t stay
not exactly all the way
just talking to them
strips you of the usual
confidence
and there you are staring
into the heart of your
most tender wound
not due to anything they do
just being their poetic self
and you being you

they show you
your every insecurity
every imperfection on your skin
like pimples on your face
you are dying to stay brave
caught between wanting
to turn away
and needing to heal the pain
of habitual denying that thing
hidden from your view
they glue you to yourself
and make you be true
pin you to the floor
when you want to cut and run
when you just can’t take anymore
and still you return again humbled
because they are your bond unbreakable
now that you learned to taste
a kind of freedom you’d never known
in the grace of the vulnerable
their name comes to represent
the battle between your responsible self
and your contentious desire
their influence is the reminder
of everything you’ve yet to master

His Hermes caresses my hidden face
my lunar waters swell his concealed pride
when he smiles it makes me break what’s cold
Orpheus who can make weep trees and stones
above the play on the second floor of our house
we make love daily into something exalting
on the first floor we dine casually smiling
politely pretending we’re guests to one another
in the basement we slay each other
with desires restrained
cat and mousing
the flow of information like control war games
and inside we die again and again
then come back to life in the place
we least expected and try to make
it like it doesn’t matter
but no one changes everything the way
he does with a single word and I’d lie
if I didn’t admit
my pride is worse than his surprise
something so complicated I turn inside
to pick apart
what it is I can’t define
I’ve lost faith and found love
so what is it
I’m still fighting so much?

Until the fires of the cross burn out
the angst of our blockades
there will be no empty deep dark
our cave of silence remains
filled with the laughter
of children unborn echoing
what we’ve forgotten to transcend
through the underworld we ascend
I journey back a step behind him
hoping this time please
don’t look back at me a second take
I beg him to lead himself through
the birth canal of his becoming
because we depend on his strength
and his success links into my weakness
please don’t look for me twice I’m begging
or I’ll be lost again
and this time forever