LoVe

I had vowed to stay away from chaos, chaos makers and to not be one myself. 

But there was something

 

so touching and familiar in his eyes

a combination I had seen and loved before

- intelligence and melancholy with a touch of desperation. 

A highly erotic mix.

Even with all the warnings, especially how his long-time friends expressed shock that he had got himself a woman,

I slunk toward him - gravitating to his seesaw of gentle and brutal acts.

with each slink forward though, a part of me became smaller and frightened 

and dying to retreat to not die

He looked at me in quiet moments with love

admiration

and a tinge of the implicit violence of wanting to own something 

- like a stranger down a dark street who hopes to pin you to a wall somewhere unseen

he did - well, at least he tried

in our apartment

away from everyone's eyes

he adored me 

and my writing 

and my naked body

and he held me so tight 

that in the middle of the night, I had to pry his arm 

off my waist in order to breathe

one day, i saw an image

a startling scene early in the morning

a well-dressed elegant couple crossing a street

he

- obviously in pursuit of this woman

had a clenched fist

and   rage raged around his eyes and mouth

a couple of moments passed before i recognized 

that it was us

us

us crossing the street

our reflection in a store window

i was disengaging from this engagement 

with madness 

and 

it, the madness of ownership of 

wanting to have what someone won't give

shifted from a simmering ember

to a flame too close to things I valued 

in the middle of that street, on that day, in his transfixed stare

there was evil

the façade built of snippets 

of memorized poems

allusions to great works of art

oh, and the loving gaze too were torn away

what was left standing

was an eyesore

that made me 

see my part. 

i loved drama 

as hideous as that sounds

so, i chose to leave this love.

a man who i did love

i put the lid back on the Inland Taipan

knowing i could never tame or cure its propensity to wound

and my love of drama

rages on!

merely in words

in scenarios on paper 

i retired from scenes 

so disconcerting 

that they undo 

me

as i choose to be