Torn
My lie reclaims me pulling me back to its space; I found you there waiting for my touch on your face
Love’s gravity loosens, I rise increasing pace through time’s persistent, ebbing, flowing, endless race
Ungrounded, I helplessly float back to that place turning, twisting, living a dream you cannot chase
Occupied by true deceivers in aimless race, headlong headed nowhere, seeking our lost love’s grace
To claim discovery of her without a trace in the darkness where love’s truth shines and makes its place
Over and over and over believers claim, “Baby, I love you with the heart that is not tame”
While Apollo burns a path to her with no name and so true my heart beats, cries, and breaks to remain
Through the true lover’s pointless, tired, clamor profane, my love pierces the liars’ din calling your name
I cannot follow the path I hold in disdain that is drenched in tears falling in the winter’s reign
I can’t follow the logic where emotions reign with our held hands speaking what our hearts proclaim
She is understood through sadness, tears, heartbreak pain, and cannot falter, fall, fray, or make our love vain
Laughter’s kiss, smiling at you from time’s finite plane while I’m watching, protecting, guiding my heart’s claim
I can’t deduce, calculate, estimate, explain that passion I feel for you so clear, bright, and plain!
Infer or argue to find her in logic’s gain where we lose ourselves to the affection insane
I know love only when my senses go insane when I kiss your ear, whispering my unheard pain
I drink deep from the wine God’s amphora, waiting in love’s celestial ether from faith’s creating
Watching the Sun God’s blazing path slowly fading away from you forever: the endless waiting
Helpless I run blindly groping for hope’s sating in emptiness where I watch anticipating
To again stumble upon her, my heart’s fating, to be one with you again in love’s equating
Dino, pour more wine and drink, you win the waging and so, we all must lose in love’s great wagering.
Excerpt from Move – Written 2019
This multidimensional poem, Torn, comes from my novel Move and uses small font formatting to show the fluency of verse: best read on computer or tablet with widescreen for unbroken lines. The poem reads as one verse with two voices, male and female, denoted by unitalicized and italicized parts, speaking to each but unaware of the other. Each section reads independently or together as one voice.
I thought this piece appropriate to show multidimensional poetry's evolution from Enigma to Move and the girl who inspired this poetic style. With the recent publishing of novellas and novelettes, she came to the forefront of thought again when one of these upcoming books focused on the period I knew her. I avoided directly discussing that time for many years haunted with regrets, misguided aspirations, and perhaps more than anything, love’s altered perception.
She was a quirky, pretty girl who fascinated me with her interests, independence, and willfulness that made her a bit snippy at times but couldn't hide her many positive dimensions. I'm sure she would've argued this point, saying something to the effect of, "I'm just me." I would've accepted this stance but never believed it, for she was shrewd, playful, sometimes oblivious, but always in a very natural loveliness.
She tolerated me sometimes, other times, she seemed okay with my presence, and on other occasions, we got along well. I certainly wanted to know her better and tried, but she made clear she had no romantic interest. Still, we hung from time to time, and hope persisted as she attended school and worked while I worked and wrote. Her life and mine moved toward career goals and starting life, but this common path held extreme differences.
Meeting her came after a disastrous marriage, divorce, and many, many more problems. Recovering from bad years held enormous struggle made even more difficult by the terrible advice polluting my life. I detail this struggle in an upcoming novella that centers on my life's lostness. When I say lost, I don’t mean trying to find a career; I mean a total sense of identity loss manifested in a lack of authenticity even within my thoughts.
When I wrote, I felt dishonest, and when I spoke, I constantly judged my words. Ideas, things, and people, especially me, lost their realness to constant self-incrimination that required years to understand and free myself. Sadly, I met her during this time, and these identity issues surely impacted knowing her - not for the better. Despite this turmoil, her gravity orbited me about her in a mysterious way, which I could only define simply at the time.
I loved her.
Perhaps feeling this way from our first few meetings, many would reason a crush or delve into the situation's psychology, claiming her a crutch or band-aid on life. I know; I explored these options, but in defiance of these notions, she produced no desperation, hurt, or heaviness of heart normal to infatuation or the unrequited affection. When around her, she made me happy, even when she acted a bit curt. When gone, her absence remained.
She moved away, and I moved shortly afterward when I met someone: another story. I purposely and foolishly lost contact with her, thinking her unattainable. I can’t say she moved away and forgot about me since I stupidly never called her back, which I regret.
After parting ways, I dated, even loved a few people, but no one filled the absence. I tried to contact her over the years, most recently in March 2021, when cleaning files on my computer uncovered a marketing email list containing her name. The find's odd coincidence with writing about that time in life inspired another attempt to contact her, proving a fruitless endeavor.
Today ended searches in the uncertainty of what I expected to find after so much time. I am a stranger now and perhaps always was. I don’t know.
What I know is fate and true love's illusion, having deduced their fantasy when I wrote Enigma. Regardless, I find great meaning in her presence that dwells on every page I wrote after meeting her. More importantly, my perception altered through her, clarifying people’s multidimensional nature. She challenged me, changed me, and shifted life’s paradigm.
She's my muse, and I love her very much.
I am not sad (maybe a little) or disappointed, just left with the same absence, and that’s okay. Perhaps not being with her is the price for her inspiration.
Photo by Photo by Sebastien Gabriel on Unsplash