People have told me much of what I write is raw and dark so I thought I’d start off by posting one of my few “soppy love poems.” I find them harder to write, I think, because I’m a stressed-out, reactive sort. I have to be centred, settled and soft, and brave to tap into my sentimental side and any experience that evoked it. The Soft Zone feels like a dangerous space because I was molded by a difficult past.
Vulnerability is not my default setting. The fight/flight warrior women who likes to run my life does not like letting down the barriers she fought so hard to build in order to protect me. But without the soft zone, the rest of me could not function, let alone create. To create, you mustbe open and let the world in. A life lived disconnected with walls barricaded shut, shuts off the spontenaity we need to create. So here’s to the Soft Zone, and the soppy poems it make possible.
This Man
this man
lines up so true
in synchronous rotation
his languid kisses linger hot
then fade like the waning moon
the flash of his smile
white lightning in a jar
as his tapered fingers
trace liquid lust
to my event horizon
command me silent
fill the vacuum in my heart
make stars burst inside my mouth
and when I’ve swallowed all of heaven
and our frequencies resound
along a spectrum infinite as explosions
pinpoint the way to love
I’ll know with this man I can take flight
for if galaxies can cluster, if planets can collide
I can spiral in rings and rings
sing his praises until I am dust
for I trust
this man’s the one to live and die for
to soar outside his ambit
a pallasite
at lightspeed
olivine shards
in the orbit
of this man