I’ve been quiet this past year, soaking in teachings and contemplation of path…how best my writing serves my vision and service in the world as a warrior, a dancer, a poet, a muse.  I’ve become a servant to the love letter in the meantime, writing in volumes… but less visible to all of us. 

But today the light is different.  Perhaps now, as September dawns, and the rains are returning to Portland, and the sky seems to be just that perfect shade of sterling gray, perhaps these are just the right ingredients for me to miss that sense of contact I get when I reach out across wider space.  Perhaps someone in particular feels far away, or the stage upon which I dance and play feels a little more groundless, a little more like spreading my wings without hope or fear of landing. 

Today I want to share a love poem–part of a series I have been creating–that taps into a certain quality we all have inherently, that which defies convention without even trying.  This points to the type of love born when strangers meet and as each looks into the other, they leap.   This points to the type of love that we create as we navigate each day, when the most familiar beloved becomes fresh once more, and we fall…without hope or fear of landing.  xx S

Lover, you
are the breath of freshest air.

The wind that is my ground,
the space that is home—
it’s everything.

Meeting can be touching
a golden leaf falling across your face.

It’s the end of sumer and I wish to stretch
against the world.
I press my belly to the sky as blue as your eyes,
and arch my back.
I feel the points of my hips
and the spaces between my ribs stretch.
I feel how wide my heart can be—
We are all part of the same anatomy.

Sometimes we caress the truth with our bare hands.
Sometimes we need a pen, or
a knife.
We are also survivors and refugees.

Repetition can be a tragedy—we’ve seen it
crumble dignity.
Yet it is also the key to becoming.
Be here with me.
Let’s be brave, and I promise we’ll discover who we are.

Lovers and warriors make a habit of toasting
because we feel the fortune of having bodies.
We feel the breeze against our skin.
History has created us, just as we create it,
which is why, my love,
I will drink to your journey a thousand times and more.

The sun climbs higher in the sky,
and we follow it.

And how exactly does a love letter begin?
I think it must start long before
my darling, my dearest, my love

It starts in the morning, always.
It starts with awakening.  And it starts with a moment of beauty.

Today is a grey day, no less beautiful for the cloud cover.
My shoulder is pinched, though no less beautiful for the pain.

My lover is perfect– last night as I held him
I realized,
with something like aching and something like awe,
the profound wish in my heart for his every happiness,
victory, and success.
I wished wildly that he would never be hurt,
never grow sick.

And then I had a flash, a sort of waking dream, that once set in motion could not be unseen, stopped or brushed aside– it was him on the train tracks, his form heavy, cold and limp in a sort of terrible parody of the damsel so easily plucked from distress.  I pounded on his solid chest, and cried until all that was left was the heartbreaking effort of not being able to move him from the path of the oncoming train.  I felt the scream rise from my gut and jerk through my limbs as I chose to throw my body from his, and he
exploded in a burst of blood and light.

This is the type of horror that love imagines.

There is a wisdom that says I have been everything to you, both intimate and strange, throughout the expansive multiverses of time and space—
I smile at these fantasy memories of us: myself your lover, your oldest friend, your child’s mother, your pretty bride, your teacher, your beloved parent, your rescuer, your refuge, your guide.  I sweep more quickly past the others: your bully, your tormentor, your killer—

our eyes have met across every possible circumstance.

I think we all know the awful contemplation of losing someone over and over, and the pain that is both intuitive and immediate as we reach out again and again.

It might be possible we were born wishing for one another.
By now you seem so familiar it’s easy to imagine with you my Love,
the lifetimes we’ve spent making vows

and there is a note of electricity in your voice, the prickling of supernatural truth– like the one we feel whispering love spells for the first time, or as the drum beat quickens and the brass begins to blare–
when you tell me,
“I finally found you again.  It took so long this time.”

There is a beautiful need in the way you say
I want you,
I want you,
I want to keep you, and take care of you.

It makes me understand the preciousness of the time we have left together.
It breaks my heart, and fills it with love.

Ah! Muse Sterling
At whom to sing
Sensual fling
Never missing

The Point of Life
And love and trifles
Of Love Lies
And lack of strife

Glance at scene
Stark garish light
Melds to moon might
Stage queen

I’d like to give
Light to sight
Muse gone big
Verse stays tight

Body stays soft
Verse stays tight
Sense stays loft
Page stays light

Thanks to Michael “empegee” Goff for these tight verses.  Always a pleasure to be your muse.

xx

Sterling

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.