metaphorliteral

summer day
eating ripe cherries
and thinking about your full lower lip

My ship has come in
after I spent so long in my lighthouse
guiding it safely to shore.
For all those nights I blinked my light
hoping you'd see and understand
a message of hope--
and then-- sails on the horizon
steadily approaching my quiet beach.
I didn't sit here waiting.
It's hard work to run a lighthouse
but it's vital--
maybe I saved your life with my beacon.

Maybe I saved my own.

Come into my harbor, where I wait on the dock--
throw me a rope, let me secure you here.
Show me what you brought from distant lands,
unload your burdens.

Stay here a while
and write your name on the white sand beach
in stones and shells that will stay
long after the day you sail away.

You disarm me.
For you, I'll bare my throat.
For you, I'll submit.
For you, I'll show my vulnerabilities
and beg you to take advantage of them
shivering under your fingertips when you do.
For you and no one else
I will lay down in your arms
and close my eyes, and sleep.

Lay them out carefully:
here, the Queen of Cups
covered by the Knight of Wands,
crossed by the King of Swords.

You are an emotional dreamer.

Beware a young person with a temper
and an intellectual man.

In the past, the Three of Cups,
and the future is Temperance.

Your days of happiness are behind you.
Perhaps you can try to salvage some scraps.

Above, in favor, the Lovers,
below, the Two of Swords.

Soon you will be required to make a choice--
or perhaps you can try to combine the options,
take a little bit of everything,
stack the deck in your favor.

Seek balance. Weigh your choices.

There's nothing pure about me.
I'm a gleeful criminal,
a shameless deviant,
proud of my abnormality.
I disrespect laws
and codes of conduct
in search of excitement
and personal truth.
Not only do I do these things,
but I like to talk others
into my favorite transgressions.
"Trust me. I do this all the time."
"You don't have to... but think about it."
"I promise you'll enjoy this."
Sometimes it doesn't take much,
a slight nudge, a few convincing words:
a new partner in crime.
Other people require more work,
a cost-benefit analysis,
testimonials of prior escapades,
precautions against repercussions.
Still, it's more fun being bad
when I'm sharing it with someone,
being a bad influence on behavior,
and anyways,
my favorite transgressions
are the ones I can't do alone.

Usually logic and emotion don't work together.
You either listen to your head or your heart.
Most people aren't balanced-- one or other holds sway,
and instead of being whole they only work with part.

I let emotion guide my rationality,
measuring decisions more with heart than mind,
but I'm decent at synthesizing both sides
and that's how I contrive to usually be kind.

You're a logical thinker, almost exclusively.
Getting swept up in emotion's not an issue for you.
You look at different angles to solve a problem,
and once you start a train of thought you tend to see it through.

So when you qualified "I love you" with "logically,"
and showed me the criteria, proofs, and facts,
I could see how your brain guided your heart
though both routes resulted in the same impact.

I fell in love with you like a bolt from the blue.
You deliberated over love more painstakingly,
but now we're both wearing the same silly smile.
Emotion and logic both got us where we need to be.

My body isn't traitorous enough
to be uncomfortable when yours
is resting on it.
I can (and have) been
your pillow for hours on end
without a single nerve cell
falling asleep.
How could I waste
a moment of contact
when I count every embrace
as dear as I do?
No, I stay aware,
pacing my breath to yours,
trying to memorize this feeling
of sweet contentment.

Circling like the hawks above the wood
Taking a long view on our little gyres
The places our spirals kiss and spin apart
The ambit of my life brushing yours
Wingtips caressing as we pass each other by
Let me catch your updraft and follow you higher
Sync up our circles, chase you upwards
Taste the sky in your wake

hands entwined
let me lead you down empty corridors
peek into rooms filled with antiquities
show you the truth behind rumors
pick the locks and discover treasures
delighted by what we find
let's throw these doors open
shine our flashlights into corners
walk boldly through these hidden places
go places maybe we shouldn't go
satisfy our curiosity if we can
if you think we can
I don't think we can
but let's try anyways
together

The reason I can't come any more
might be as simple as a side-effect of drugs--
because it's listed as a common one
whenever you're messing with serotonin,
and marked on every pill I take--
but I don't think that's it
because I didn't have this problem last year,
and my medication hasn't changed since then.

It could just be boredom.
There's nothing surprising about my own body
when I've had it for twenty-six years
(thirteen of them sexually curious)
and anyways there's nothing unexpected
when I'm the one doing the touching,
but I don't think that's it either
although maybe it'd help to invest in a new toy.

I think it's deprivation. I'm starved for touch
from friendly exploratory fingers,
clever generous mouths,
the weight of a body atop mine.
I'm desperate to be manipulated
by someone kind (but maybe a little bit evil),
hungry for contact, for reciprocity.
It could be that I just need someone else's hands on me.