Love after lovelessness

LOVE AFTER LOVELESSNESS

Love
Was a word rarely heard
Rarely used, rarely spoken,
And certainly, rarely remembered
In one aching, yearning man’s
Childhood household.

Combine sexual abuse
And exhibitionism with twists;
Add in religious fundamentalism
About human sexuality
In this childless household.

Finally, take emotional coldness
Anger, controlling, and
Distancing both physical and emotional,
And you have a childhood household
That rarely modeled love
As well as rarely speaking of it.

Sex was seen as not just dirty
But also controlling and manipulative.
However, with love largely absent,
Sex filled a gap.

And the word ‘love,’
When spoken to me post-sobriety
On the phone by a once-raging father,
Seemed as manipulative as
A mom’s sexual exposure and spoken delusions
Had to a teenaged, hurting child.

I am more than my story.
I have grown beyond it, at least in bits,
But it would be a lie
To simply say, ‘I am not my story,’
Though I need to detach yet more.

If you know me well, as you do,
You know that. And I know you do.
Something can be both true and excuse-making.
I recognize more who and what I want,
If but in fits and spurts, too.

And I know that life isn’t always perfect,
Especially in its timing.

Life is short; and fear?

LIFE IS SHORT 2

Ars longa, vita brevis.
So goes the ancient Latin saying —
“Art is long but life is short.”
I would like to amend that:
Ars longa, timor longior.
“Art is long, but fear is even longer.”
Choices we want to make, we fear making —
Fearing rejection, failure or other results.
And, it’s not just fear.
Let me include frustration,
Disappointment, and more,
Under the rubric of timor.
Missed chances, rejected chances and rejected choices
Have left me often alone,
Even when my desire was clearly otherwise.
I don’t fully understand myself,
But I wish I had a daily mirror to reflect me,
And let me reflect her,
To see what love can be,
While yet retaining some of my skepticism
About what it is not.
But I am afraid my skepticism,
Part natural, part protective, part timorous,
Will remain an albatross,
Even when I am ready for a mirror,
And ready to swim against the tides of chance
To be with one.

— March 18, 2010