Ruined

You ruined it for me. If it weren't for you I'd enjoy a lot more sex. Better sex. Each woman who comes on to me, cast calling me into their unplayed dreams. Invitation to plant in their pocked yard. I could fulfill them if not for you. I could play into their illusions if you had left mine intact. The whole trouble starts when I recognize you looking at me through their eyes; I expect your courage.

Until I see how they think. Layers warm transparent in the heat of proximity, a few turn back, and I find out. They will choose fear over and over. In choosing what to think, what to feel, do, say. And that's when I realize how unlike you they have become. Then I can't even stand the reflection of your original. Sidewalk art goes beyond tacky to useless: who can bear to dishonor it by stepping on it? Or the greater dishonor to sidestep it? The real thing combined with the fake thing is doubly unbearable.

When did you do this? Were you someone I met when love seemed no more dangerous than blossoming friendship, bosom buddies, pals with boobies? And how far away are you now, a thousand breaths or a thousand lifes? Yeah I always saw you behind her eyes. That look women get. Adoring eyes more than bless the land, they are the mother's love itself, unearthed and reborn. Before fear's apple tempts anyway, that's the look. That look always felt like the way you looked at me. No mystery where the myth of Adam and Eve comes from. Every recapitulation disappoints in the same way. A woman's love taps all womanity, exhumes your fearless brilliance. And then the parade of choices made in fear reveal how far they've fallen from your grace.

Just like all men are Don Juan's sireling crossed with the feckless fathers of their deflowered daughters. The trappings of romantic abandon trapped inside lustful insatiable cowardice.

Just like all women combine the impossibly generous longing of mother earth with the terrified beasts of her abandoned daughters. Loving eye temptation into the desolation of tornadoed gardens. Bounty reaped too soon by fearful outrage, the crop passes from unripe to rotten without the chance to nourish. Before acceptance and understanding mature, friendship's harvest is called off by horrific anticipation. The blessings of all their mothers take me in. Then the rage of all their fathers stops them from accepting whole. The warmth of fire draws near, then destroys what it would have cleansed.

She seemed so bold alive that I could tell her anything. It was a trap. (Though hers, not mine.) As soon as I said something that reminded her of hurt, she began to punish and to reform. As if her job were to recognize evil early enough to fix or flee. To count death's coming by its red flags. In this way she greeted the coming of new life as its opposite. I'd be quite happy with her now if not for you, plowing under new ideas, burying them below where they'd never sprout. It would not feel like death to me.