Hustle Meditations

 

Some days we wake and our bodies ache.

We can hardly keep our lips moist for the consuming fever, and all suppleness has left

our limbs.

We seek the comfort of a fortress made of pillows

and the sweet friends who offer to bring over juice and soup, or their favorite passwords.

A true love will hold us close through the shaking and the

medicine will fix us in time.

(Sometimes we secretly rejoice, because we can finally rest.  Rest.  Rest.)

 

There are so many ways to wake up.

 

Other days

we wake

and our minds ache–a heaviness infuses our thoughts and

on these days even the truest love

seems dull

 

and so far away.

 

Even the sweetest heart is held at arm’s length and

though we feel sorrow

no more than a single tear will fall.

We’ll say

It’s the wind

and let treasure slip by unnoticed.

We’ll say

It’s not important

as we sink deeper and deeper.

 

It’s hard to rejoice in these moments.

It’s hard to remember that we deserve gentleness and rest.

 

If we’re lucky, we’ll feel our feet touch the murky bottom

and the slight tug at our hearts, urging us awake again.

 

But when we crack heavy eyelids

there is such brilliance waiting for us.

It takes just a fraction of a moment to remember

all we have received

to make it this far.

And just a little longer to remember

that our lives are a love letter

 

simply signed,

Thank you.

When we begin
the feelings seem to rush at us like a tragedy–
a thousand different
shattered pieces
all clamor for attention at the same time.
We make these feelings solid:
this pain in my neck,
the unease in my shoulders,
that weight of
I don’t know what to do,
the sense that
time is running out, and the
shock

of discovering all this in my body.

Even now,
I feel myself leaning towards you– murmuring things
about things–anything it seems,
to get away from
the strength of this noise.

Eventually though
we become exhausted
keeping up with such assignments–
tracking who did what to us and what it means about
me to have such scars.
Eventually, we grow tired even of indulging ourselves, and keeping such a vigilant watch over the way that time passes–
the wrinkling of soft skin around the eyes, and every new shade of hair color.
We become exhausted remembering
all these words for things,
assigning worth to concepts
as though we could
buy our ways out of confusion,
as though we really could end suffering with a degree, or a drug.

And when we have strained enough
we forget.
In a flash we discover the openness of space.
In a moment
we just are
beings.

It isn’t long before the heart beat
starts to make sense again, though.
And I
quite naturally
yearn for the way I am certain
your lips will fit over mine.
I crave the weight of your
body in my arms
and the smooth expanse of your back against my breasts.

The way the glow of the fire catches
the lightening at your temples–
it begs for the trace of my fingertips,
and when I reach down to touch
the earth
every part of me is embraced

in return.

He had painted the picture perfectly–that frenzy that takes hold when we, drunk on our skin, find ourselves with nothing but time and the other.  There were sensations, and positions and scenarios.  Flavors, even.  Strawberries in bed.  Silence and steam.  It is our mistake to conceive that we have been doing anything other than making love with the whole universe all day long.  But in this mistake, we find ourselves in the compelling illusion of a window of absolute possibility.  Clothes decorate the floor.  French lingerie.  A tie.   In this mistake, I can’t deny my hunger, or how perfect it feels to touch his naked body meeting mine with generous certainty…

 

Kneeling down in front of you,

I look up into your eyes

and kiss

along the grooves of your belly, flicking my tongue along

sensitive flesh.

I am teasing myself as much as you,

because I want to consume

the way the light plays along your abdomen, and the smell of your skin

as it slopes downward.  Now

I am hungry.

 

I want to feel you, fat and full in my mouth.  I begin

to beg for your cock, whisper madness against–

you are already speaking words from across an ocean

humming and thrumming,

your ass clenches beneath my light touch–

I understand only the cadence of your body, only what you cannot help but tell me.

 

Your hips begin to thrust

when you part

my soft lips, edged with heat, and slide over

my wet tongue towards the depths of my throat.

 

The ocean cannot help but

completely meet the land– she fills him as completely as he fills her.

Her nature presses against his shape, filling every nuance of his body.

 

I gag you farther into me,

my convulsions send waves of drool

rushing against you–rivers

curve downward, over the muscles of your thighs.

You swell within me in response, hold me, hold me there.

 

Only when I have no choice but to breathe you

do you pull from my mouth, and slap my cheek.

I am awake.

I drink in the air, feel my drool running off my chin and onto my breasts.

I love the impact of your cock against my jaw

and I stare up at you with my lips swollen and parted.

 

My mascara and eyeshadow are dark

and smeared, making my eyes look even larger.

You twist a hand into my bright hair, bringing me to my feet.

I don’t argue as you kiss me deeply,

and cradle my face in your palms.

 

I am pressed into a soft mattress.

I don’t argue as your use your tie to secure me to the bed,

my arms stretched above my head.

I know you are so hard you want to fuck

me senseless until you cum.

Instead you press your cock firmly

against my thigh, so I can feel it, want it,

and then you use your mouth all over me.

 

When I moan,

you slide a thigh between my legs

and let me ride you

as you

bury your face in my chest,

cupping my breasts

and drawing them into your mouth one by one.

You squeeze and suck and drink me in until my whole body seems to swell beneath you

and your thigh is slick with drool and the trail of my cunt.

 

When I moan again, you bring two fingers to my lips,

and I draw them into my mouth,

begging you again with my eyes, completely lost in the mistake.

You press your smooth shaft against my wet sex, and my hips buck.

I want you inside me more than anything,

but you pull away.

Instead of giving me your cock, you slide both fingers

into me,

opening me.

This is when I start to cum.

 

Again you hold,

hold still as I convulse around you,

waiting

for one of the infinite ways pleasure can ripple through a body

to ebb.

I am still trembling as you

rest one hand lightly on my belly, and with the other

start to fuck me,

our bodies finding some impossible rhythm,

creating language.

 

You seem to rotate the planet’s axis

and I’d swear it was the start of the world again.

 

I flood against you, coating you in salt water

and now you are on your knees

sucking and licking and drinking me in and

I must be screaming

but it must be all sounds

because I can hear only silence.

 

 

to be continued…

Sometimes we wake in the dark and mourn

it is not yet day, but if we stay

there are secrets

to be learned, for this is the brightest part of night.

 

A disk of fire rims the horizon,

and the moon still glows overhead, heavy and full–

they seem to reach

for one another, and the expanse between them makes me yearn.

I feel my breath quicken.

 

Now is the best time for cutting flowers.

Slick with dew, they seem to bend towards me.

Perhaps they also long to be picked,

because I know just the ones to bring close to my heart.

 

Later, the sun seems to be everywhere.

I give a child a flower, feel myself glow

when our fingertips touch as he takes the fragile blossom.

Immediately he runs to his new friend,

“Look what I have for you,” he exclaims.

She wears it in her hair–beauty

ornamenting beauty until the last petal withers

in the evening.

 

I give a man a flower,

watch the light come into his eyes.

It is nearing sunset when my heart leaps

from a mountain top as

he surprises me

with a kiss.

 

This is the essence of society,

the ceremony of delighting one another.

A gift becomes a gift,

because love knows love

and does not diminish.

 

 

Valencia was high on the narcotic of the atmosphere she had created.  S could feel the energy radiating off of her—this was Val’s element, wholly and completely.  It was as though the lush elegance of her entire underground fortress, with its surreal gardens and dens of pleasure and realms of fantasy were a living machine transmuting the longing, pain, suffering, shame, all into the ecstatic throes of orgasm, complete union—as though this monolith of collective exploration and pursuit synthesized purpose through her entire being.  The vibrations hummed with light.  S sensed V was a type of magnifying glass, harnessing the awesome power of the sun and channeling it through her with precision; there would certainly be fires tonight.

The current moving among the three of them was already palpable.  In this moment S felt the full spectrum of her capabilities.  As her thought process moved through her, she knew her heartbeat—full and wet, like eyes filled with tears, a blink from spilling across skin.

At first it was overwhelming—too raw, too tender, the pulse too thick in her ears, that threat of overflow, the vibrations seeming to increase in frequency until S thought she must have drunk too much, must be spiking into panic.  S turned her head from side to side. Then she caught hold of some irregularity, some distinction that helped her realize this was not her pulse spiraling out of control.  She was sensing three hearts pumping vital blood and oxygen through three separate bodies.  Hers, Val’s, and of course his. Once S could recognize it for what it was, she felt herself sigh.  On the exhale anything unnecessary left her thought process.  She was available.  Ready.

They turned as one and exited quietly through an entryway that had been minutes before obscured by a large hanging black velvet curtain.  Valencia’s form seemed to meld with the inky black, except for her pale skin and her shocking firey hair.  The party would not miss them.  As S paused before ducking behind the curtain, she couldn’t help but smile at the bliss radiating through the atmosphere.  Gods, all of them.

for C.

 
What is it that anchors us to
that empty cosmic space
into which it all dissolves, emerges
returns and spirals?  The breath
is the anchor, changing every millisecond.
The anchor is the returning.

The trust they build systematically,
and over time—this
was the anchor, the trust that couldn’t be broken
because they were free to do what it was they wanted.

They worked hard for one another.
There were the small pains of every day, and every night;
there were the sorrows and the joys and life
rushed through them illuminating their cells
and their smiles, creating the creases at the sides of their lips and eyes.

But the anchor was ever-changing, morphing, building upon itself.
Because he was a genius and an engineer, and she was an artist, and blessed with grace.
And they decorated, and celebrated and surmounted,
and lived and died over and over with this simple promise only bringing them closer together—
Trust, unbroken.

She thought of that anchor like the seed she wore around her neck, a small weight pressed against her breastbone.  She thought of her anchor and it was in the moments that she touched the universe inside of her.
When she reached out to stroke emptiness.

In the morning I ache for the shape
your body makes in my arms,
as though I were simply a glass
aware of her purpose to be filled
to brimming.

It is summer and the whole thing feels like
beginning again.
We all want to go mad and run outside,
because we know that every inch of our bodies was made to be kissed
by the extensive embrace of light.

I will admit; sometimes it feels like
sorrow
as the rays bend toward afternoon.
We rush to fill our glasses, as the day cools
like fresh bread out of the oven.  We rush to fill
our nights.

Watching the stars, I feel as though I am pregnant
with the whole world.
I’d swear you were all my lovers.

There is a splendid parting
that can occur only after we have been
utterly combined.
I wish
to become only more of myself,
which is love, gritty and beautiful.

At times, I don’t think you know
how you have changed my life.
This is why I need to spend my hours writing—
to find the next closest exact way to say it,
in search for that perfect definition that becomes
Love
itself.

Hailstorms, the herald of summer magick–
I am reminded of adventures as a young woman, learning to practice in the high altitude.
It was a dance of chemistry and broom and glass.
We camped in the attic and worked love spells, and then we wallpapered the entire house in poetry.
Now I like to cum when it thunderstorms
Orgasms like Kali
the sky seems to share in my shudder and I can hear my heart cry out, shatter.
Sometimes the artist finds herself in darkness and you
are left there suspended, dear Reader
on the edge of death–
there are teachers and master sorcerers
Enlightenment is at hand (and foot, and any other part belonging to human)
consciousness dawning
up up and away
always exploding
all ways the big bang, the morning of creation

reincarnation

When it hails, the air feels a little dangerous, a little too full of charge.
We tuck ourselves into bed, and fuck our lovers
or we make love to ourselves
and wait

There is a skill to possessing desire,
being the rider

and not letting it consume us.

liberation
of the heart
dear pilgrim

To those who cry artistry is but a career obsession with the self I say
art is made to touch.
We must let the world work on us
caressing us like rain storms and we must
protect the rain
as dear

as our beloved’s heart.

We can resist our designs in many ways,

dulling our senses in an illusion,
yielding our strong hearts over to strength of a drink, or more

becoming forgetful
is also a choice–
we are so powerful we must decide to shut down awareness.
When these feelings climb too high for feeble minds to remain steady
we might tell ourselves we are refusing the pre-destined routes of the robot
but this too is a mistake, ranking
this over that
consciousness over consciousness
space over space

What if we are more like the robot than we imagine?
we too can perform single-pointedly
that which we have been built to do.
We are light conductors.  We are channels.

And Love, sometimes I am anxious, too.
And while these high frequencies conduct through us, and down into the ground
maybe we don’t have to do anything, reach for something a little stiffer
maybe we can be pliable, be together,
holding one another steady.

We imagine we are grabbing a small corner of private space
something just for ourselves, when our eyes meet over the rim of a glass and our bodies almost merge
when really what we are measuring out in glasses, is just a metaphor for the parts of us that soar free.

When I make love to you
I am making love to the world.  This is always occurring
our dance is no different today but sometimes I seem to need it more.
Perhaps this shows me how far I have wandered, how many moments I have chosen to forget.
We are intimate.  We are our most private utterances.  We are billboards.

I have a small confession: I whispered the word “Love” to the ice in your drink when you weren’t looking
felt the molecules rearrange.
and when you drank a toast down, you were drinking my love potion.
but you can make your own
go mad with desire to be close to the Beloved, who is everywhere.  All you have to do is breathe, and perform
with all the strength you have
that which sets your heart free.

For this piece, I have my Chere Mama to thank as the inspiring muse.  Well, her and the gorgeous California sun, and some days spent by the sea celebrating her 60th birthday this past weekend.  It’s nice to take time to come home, re-charge, and reunite with some family friends.  Plus, my parents know how to throw a party.  So while it’s not really a Hustle Meditation, it is another type of love poem, which as you know are the types that I love best.  Please enjoy.

xx

Sterling

 

 

Every day is an opportunity to bless and be blessed,
and some days
I feel the truth of this, can barely contain myself in it.
I just sit in awe, letting my lower lip drop a fraction
feeling so delightfully tangled
and not caring the way the elements
play with my hair.
In moments like this I know the truth,
that eyes are made for so much more than seeing;
that I exist somehow also to be seen
watched and tenderly tended as I grow,
blossoming into brilliant flower and fruit.

And as I watch her
I aspire to become as beautiful and wise.
I want to learn to do as she does,
maturing enough to take these jeweled petals and
give myself away
becoming the medicine someone needs,
the spice in a soup made to soothe and nourish,
or the note in a perfume that enchants.
I hope one day to be picked and made into a tea
or a sweet smelling bath for a child weary from pushing her tender shoots out of the earth for the first time,
like my mother was for me.

I know that I will remember to dance,
to roll around, hang upside down if the mood strikes me, spread myself across the world,
caressing every corner before I go.
I will dry gracefully like roses that still hold the magic of a thousand valentines or love spells,
becoming somehow more potent as the heavenly bodies whirl around us.
It is a blessing to know now that we are dancing together.

In this moment there is nothing but gratitude
and I feel so much more like a thief than a poet
to have so much.
So I breathe in deeply
the blessing that is today
knowing I am only borrowing the wind.
As my breath dissolves, I feel such relief
because I am giving it back to you.

Perhaps I can be the poet after all;
she is the one who gives everything away.

For you Mama!  On your birthday!