Love Begins

We do not talk, you and I. There's a hush, a chill that surrounds the air we breathe. Sometimes I see it hang suspended in the air, over us, as we go about our daily lives.

It used to be different, so very long ago, when we were young and full of ourselves, deliciously blind to reality, yet full of dreams, love and lust.

I could say I hate you, but that isn't quite  true. I love what we once had.

I deplore the creatures we've become.

 
Sunrise, from wikipedia, GNU license.

Remember when I wrote these words?

A savage poetry
Tendresse
Metamorphosis

I was convinced then that what we had was real. It was real. It is real. So much the feeling of real is a shared delusion, of which we convince ourselves.

That was true then; this enmity, too, is a shared delusion.

O, to return to a state of innocence. Of innocence, lost, regained.

There were the nights of convoluted bodies and spaces explored - the emptiness we filled,  the long kisses of soul sucking breath from each other's soul.
 
Now this love seems old.  The touch, shiver, caress and full-body embrace no longer makes me quiver, moisten or yearn.

I'm dead to my feelings for you. For you, too, that is true.

When like lovers even three years ago we touched and snuck away to your office, the kiss seemed like first-time; I knew then we'd never die, that we'd stay locked within each other's hearts.

Those moments are like letters never opened,  with the sealing wax never opened, yet crusted over, almost broken.

It is a fragile love, ours. 

At one time, when our love began, we thought we'd invented love - it was lust that was more than lust - I could feel your breath upon my neck as you grazed my body and I sunk into pleasure. 

We never could avoid each other, so much trouble we found ourselves in, always yearning for more.

I'd searched for someone like you;  the poet in me seeks an avenue that few can fill.

In you, I'd found it, or so I thought.

Truly,  I'd found myself. I had not found you, but myself.

You, too, have found yourself.

Do you remember when we asked: what happens after we make love more than 1,000 nights? Will it all disappear in a vapor of taste-memories?

Did it all disappear in a vapor of taste-memories? Or did the anger kill everything?

We know each other too well -  how many years we explored the crevices, sucked the juices from each other's souls so that there were no new spaces, crevices, tastes left to explore.

I wonder about that.

Do you remember this postcard I mailed to you, early in our love?

Meet me
Friday, 7 p.m.
Dark corner
Garter is yours
Your lap kitten

You foamed at the mouth.

I knew then I had you at the word Go.

As we round the corner into another year, we wonder where our love went.

It went to our differences, the problems we knew one day would cast afternoon shadows longer than our lust.

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This is the first in a fictional 7-part series on marriage and family. It has been rewritten from earlier postings.

Copyright,  © 2006, 2007  2008 Kathryn Esplin-Oleski. All rights reserved.