sink or swim

You weave into my dreams and touch me during the night before I sleep, sending me off with a sigh, the corners of my heart drawn to a huddle by the yearning, that yearning, those nimble lips and serene, glacial eyes inspire. I think of how men used to court--perhaps still do somewhere-- women; how women seem to swoon at the confusion of pursuit, succumbing only in a state of furtively willful delirium, delighting in it, able to withdraw again and resist to swoon anew. And I think of how with you, a spontaneous mutuality erupted between us, with neither losing a foot, only always racing towards the other, gaining miles in each lope.

Then I think of my drunken behavior and realize with a stab of harrowing sorrow that it wasn't always like that; that too often--once would have done--I sullied our orchestra with a foul, misplaced note, a ditzy sheep's bleat in the middle of a violin concerto. Pause. Pause. Resume...

...in your pristine, loving generosity, your altruistic and perfectly defined vision and actuation of Love, you wish me to feel no regret, to have no remorse; yet I do; and as timely a reminder as time requires I will if only to check the impulses any frailty of will or of character might summon, leading me into that hateful pattern of drinking as predictable and rhythmic as pistons firing in an engine.

My Brandi, crumple when you must, dissolve into shivering skin, slung clothes, eyes looking through a snowglobe melted, seeing nothing. I'll walk with you.

And I have through and with you been building the levy which no human moment of yours can dent, slacken my resolve. It only fortifies me, sharpens my purpose. The strength you've given me in steady streams filled a once-dry lakebed, and it is yours, too. Swing from a tire tied to a tree limb, and whoop, and let go, and splash in it. You won't drown; I won't let you, even if I can't swim.

"Dulce et decorum est por patria mori"

Diffidence transmutes into sullen rage at the specious activities informing the lives of those near and dear. Unjust, the resentment roils with unerring judgment, disproving conventional notions of justice with which to begin.

Selfishness on my part? Would that I had not been harangued to desist from being who I am--in part or in whole--that I might then have no expectations for my loved ones to make as Herculean (and austere, stark, bleak) an effort as I to reform, to be or do, where the two differ, that which they are not. Nietzsche knew as well as any I suppose the price paid to the taskmaster by slave when slave made: rebuttal, a demand for servitude in kind.

Selfishness? If selfishness then by selfishness inspired; and I rebuke and renounce all subsequent judgment. I made none towards others; asked of them nothing fundamental, not even a clipped nail or soul. For concession to demands made to me, I demand in return. Perhaps justice after all whose cornerstone is tragic ignorance...

...the friendliest voice I know, the fridge's electric hum, sounds in the room. Pipes issue their own groaning protest at the twist by someone's need. A creak here and there. Muffled murmurs make their own claim from outside or within the walls confronting me with questions I refuse to acknowledge; they're ambiguously put; and as matter of etiquette, I'd ask for some clarity. Objects--a metal chair, slung jeans, books, mirrors--bulge restlessly at their forced contrition, their subjugation by stillness, that awful ennui they detest. Fast and constant friends, yet estranged, the things surrounding me...

...an animal pads on the snow outside my door. I hear it...

Talking with my son, a child, he said when I asked him how he defended his behavior when it was deemed "bad" a truism. He said, "He lies, she lies, they lie." Not an exercise in pronoun usage, I asked him his meaning. An audible shrug, a pause, and then, "It's like asking 'why', Daddy."

Equality, in a word.

Piss off, in two.