louisa aletheia

Sitting by your side

as the scenery rolls behind you

outside the driver’s side window

my hand in the crook

of your right elbow

pulsepoint.

The curve of your arm

so strong

and safe

and smooth

smoke curling off your fingertips.

I want to taste it.

I take the cigarette from your hand and place it in my mouth

inhaling the burning embers of tobacco smoke

into the tenderness of my palate

and my lungs.

At about halfway through a cigarette

I start to feel the nicotine

spreading out into my veins

pulsing

all the way out into my fingertips

the way tequila used to snap electricity down my arms

and bourbon steeped warmth through the palms of my hands.

It feels a little sick.

And yet it feels familiar.

And then the sickness passes.

And I feel alive.

As I look at the curve of your lips

and your profile behind sunglasses

and the silver link chain around your neck

and the short crop

of your Irish blond hair.

I place the cigarette between your soft lips

that feel dense and malleable when I kiss them

and watch you inhale it.

So sensuous

the love play

of your mouth

and the smoke.

I want to taste it.

The danger both draws and repels me.

I wonder…

Which way am I going to go?

Are you going to go?

Are we going to go?

For you.

And,

for me.

primal daughter

sleeping in my belly

awakens to the drumbeat of your heart

she looks out

through the rims of my eyes

seeing past the discernment

age has sculpted in my mind

she sees the sculpture of your body

each curve of muscle accented by the shadows

can smell the musk of your arrival

and the tasting of your tongue

she rises to the pores of our skin

and eclipses all my explaining

neck curling back to expose the tender flesh

and offers it to you

i am not monogamous and i am not random either…

sensuality of scintillating energy

coursing through my body

as egg presents itself

high inside my core

softens my skin

opens my pores

the light and air

pour right through

in and out

over and over

again

single red rose

amidst the blazon of thorns

black and twisted

against the night

droplet of blood

of life

of wisdom

amidst the chaos

amongst the daemons

coexisting

with the strife

i cannot pick you

put you in a vase

to keep you with me

keep me safe

and yet the knowing

that you are living

means none of this

has gone to waste

taste

of the infinite

intermingled

with your flavor

sense memories

of the last time you touched me

culling me from sleep

with soft kisses and soft skin

i am shy and you are playful

and I let go of my armor

and let you touch the place in me

i didn’t know i had

a lover without a lover

is like an artist without a form

aching to express

the dance we were born to share

it cannot be just anyone

only ones who recognize

the magnificence of the dance

animating space between us

that dance can last a lifetime

or only just one day

it is not time that defines us

but intimacy

our eyes meet in the marketplace

and walking down the street

the light flashes between us

we know one of our own

i am looking for you, lover

you that come in a thousand forms

and when we meet again

i am ready for you

Daria was a very small girl with veins so tiny that the nurses always missed when they drew blood.  And they drew blood often.  For Daria’s mother was always afraid that Daria was so tiny, and that she was so still all the time.  Daria’s mother would always be feeding her chocolate malted milk shakes to fatten her up, make her smile, and get her moving.  But Daria did not like chocolate, or even ice cream, and certainly not malted milk shakes.  Or smiling.  Or moving around.  Daria liked to be still.

Her favorite thing was to lie by herself in the wooded valley behind her house with her legs in the sun and her torso in the shade.  She could do this for hours.  She may have looked like she was asleep, if anyone was looking, but she was awake.  Resting in the state of complete awareness before thoughts.  Listening to the birds and the buzzing of the bugs, smelling the tender scent of blades of grass and wildflowers, watching the clouds sweep across the sky.  She was good at knowing what time it was by the placement of the shade and the time of year, not that anyone asked.  She just always knew where to go to lie across the shade line and when she had to come home.  She always felt so sad when she had to come home.  Which is maybe why her mother never saw her smiling.

The nurses were always missing her veins and thumping her knees with a hammer.  Daria was so still that her mother was worried her legs would grow weak and she would become crippled.  Daria’s mother took her to specialists who suggested extreme measures like sitting on the kitchen countertop with legs dangling, flexing her thighs to strengthen the muscle just above her knees.  When Daria’s mother wasn’t looking, Daria would stop flexing and smile, and pour some milkshake down the sink.

As Daria grew she became as beautiful as the sunset.  You couldn’t take your eyes off her fleeting beauty, until she was gone.  Her long dark hair and delicate features so pretty, so petite.  She learned early to let quiet boys come lie with her in the valley with their legs between hers in the sunlight, filling the hole inside her with the warmth of their sunshine.  And then to lie so still.  Silent.  There was nothing more she wanted or she needed.  Until they had to go home.  Then, she was empty again.

Some of the other kids began to drink alcohol.  She was never very interested in that.  It was smelly and messy and made everyone loud.  Some began to smoke marijuana.  Mostly they became silly, but Daria became quiet.  All she would hear was her breath and her heartbeat.  And feel the tingling in her skin just like when she was in the sun, even when she was at home.  So she started to just stay at home.  And the quiet boys would come to her there.

One day her mother came home to find Daria asleep, encircled by two quiet, beautiful boys.  They were lying in tender embrace, with their legs in the sunlight through the windowpane and their torsos in the shade from the curtains, their creamy skin blending together in a tangle of young flesh.  It was hard to tell masculine legs from feminine legs at that age, intertwined across the crimson comforter.  Her mother shrieked, loudly.  Daria just opened her eyes, and smiled.  Neither of the boys moved, right away.

But Daria and her mother did.  She was barely thirteen after all.  Her mother must protect her.   Move her to the city.  Where she would be cultured.  She would forget these simple pleasures of the country and learn to be in the world.  That was what she needed.  Daria’s mother tried to forget her daughter’s smile.

The buildings were tall in the city, and it was dark most of the time.  Daria was forced to walk on pavement and ride trains underground.  She began to wear black to blend in with the grime of the city streets.  She rimmed her eyes with charcoal.  She was still so tiny, like a lost little bird caught in a vast urban warehouse, with no beginning and no end.  Now she only wanted to stay home, in her room, all alone.  Ashen.  Hardly any light came in through the window.  Even her legs were in the shade.

One day she encountered a boy on the street who looked like her, and felt like her.  They looked into each other without saying a word.  They began to meet daily on the same street corner, at the same time, without ever discussing it.  They sat together, near the river.  Still.  Eventually they began lying in his room.  Daria stopped coming home as much.  Her mother shivered in the cold of her absence.

He was the one who first found the needle.  It glistened in the light from his bedside table.  She was afraid to try it, her veins were so tiny the nurses always missed when they drew blood.  He showed her how he did it, and then she lie with him, her hand on the pulse in the crook of his elbow.  She felt him seep out of himself and touch the inside of her, without even moving.  She gazed into his eyes.  He pierced her tiny vein with the shimmering shaft of the needle. He didn’t miss.  She felt she would never feel lonely again.

The warmth spread from the tiny hole in her tiny vein instantly.  Like a slow flood filling the interior space of her body with light.  Part of it felt loud and part of it felt sick, and she instinctively relaxed into it and it passed into a glorious sunset inside her.  And he was there with her.  No separation, not even these bodies.  These bodies that let them experience the taste of each other.  Without even moving.  They melted, blended into one, and she crested in a place slightly above the bed writhing in the air.  He held onto her there.  And then she started to come down.

There was now an edge to things that she had never felt before, even more than with the nurses, even more than when she had to go home.  Yet she didn’t have to leave yet.  Although with only artificial light, she didn’t know what time it was.  She looked at her lover.  And she spoke.  She said, “More”.  And he gave it to her.

She couldn’t get enough of it.  And yet she knew she wasn’t even sure how much she liked it.  There was no light in it after only a short time.  Only darkness.  Only more.  The boy and his needle were tools she needed to not explode.  They were not gifts anymore.  She could not survive without them.

The boy was sick too.  He could not find the silence anymore, even the high was loud.  Roaring.  Daria never left his room, she would lie there and he would bring her dope and they would lie together.  Through the frame of his dark hoodie he would sometimes see her mother, frantic, searching the streets where he had first walked with Daria.  He dared not look at her.  He didn’t want her to take his birdie away.

He began to be gone for longer stretches of time for he needed to sell more dope to get more dope to feed his pet Daria.  She was so tiny she hardly made a lump on his bed.  He was afraid each time he came home she would be gone, even if her body was still there.  She may disappear.  Her eyes were back holes where the light should have been.

They became more desperate.  They could not get to the peace no matter how hard they tried.  Daria could not even walk anymore, her legs were so thin without sunlight.  He knew she really was about to die.  He got down on his knees and he wailed, he cried, yet no sound came from his body.  Just silence.  So vast it stunned him.  And he got up off his knees. 

He picked her up and he carried her to the river.  At the edge of the city the sunrise filtered through the trees.  So many colors radiating through the layers of pollution that shrouded the city.  He lay her down on the little smudgy patch of grass, her legs in the sunlight and her torso in the shade.  They lay there together, side by side, as the sun rose and the shade receded.  The light crawled up her body slowly, across her pelvis and fingertips, over her belly and her hands and her ribcage, up her arms and across her breasts and shoulders, over her neck, and finally encircled her face in an orb of radiant light.  Her lips parted and she inhaled deeply the humid, polluted, urine stench breath of the city air.  And she smiled.  Her eyes opened and they sparkled in the light.  And little Daria began to laugh.  And cough.  And laugh again.  Slowly, slowly like the sunrise, she sat up.  And then even more slowly, with the help of his knees, she stood in the sunlight.  Her balance was wobbly, and she started to sway.  Instead of falling, she began to dance.  A silent little dance to a tune that only she could hear.  And he watched her, transfixed, his body unconsciously swaying with her in the wake of her rhythm.  Ready to catch her when she falls.      

secret lovers

passersby

on busy NYC street

without skipping a beat

he winks

and she blushes

the whole world

of silent knowing

conveyed

in the blink of an eye

then blend back into the maelstrom

sensitized

to the breath of air

sliding across skin

i keep searching

for my compliment

feeling like something is missing

inside myself

~

the ones I think I want

elude me

the ones who think they want me

don’t fit right

~

a warm cup of tea

asana

the bath

my orgasm

support me for a moment

and then

the moment is gone

and I feel the emptiness again

~

please fill me

with the luminescence

that cannot be taken anyway

no matter where I am standing

everywhere I go

the friend