2/3 of a trilogy

Part I: Out of Time
Let’s find a hole in time and space. A bed of leaves in a forest clearing, my darling. All is still: somewhere else, six billion beings pulse in all their mediocrity/vulagrity/obSCENITY somewhere else! but for us there is only here and now: we are the space between the drops, the pain between the beats.
Come lie down with me on this bed of leaves. Turn to me now, and search my face. Do i have what you are looking for? I promise with my eyes, fulfill with my lips. Let me introduce myself to you: where shall I begin? The back of your neck invites my caress, and I greedingly oblige. I will kiss your neck gently, breathing you in, familiarizing myself with your warmth. My fingers are shaking: the neurons are firing, as an ancient message clicks into place: you belong here, and here, and here. I place my hand on your chest, together we rise and fall. Your white cotton tee shirt is sexier than all the nudity of the Roman Empire. Breathe me in. I am with you, and all senses are concentrated into the heightened awareness of you. Are we breathing together? Show me your eyes.
I will stroke your cheek, again, again, again, memorize this, take it with me: this is how it feels to be loved in a mirror. This is what it’s like to be unashamed. Again, again, again, leaving fingerprints, burning your memory into my hands.
Hold me close. I’m overwhelmed by your closeness, by your strength. By the silent power that trembles under your touch. Now I’ve forgotten. I’ve forgotten there was anyone else. I’ve forgotten there was shame and guilt and pride and hurt and anger and fear. I’ve forgotten everything but how to breathe.
Take off my shirt: will you take yours off? We lie perfectly still: our stomachs kissing, our chests melting into each other.
Open your eyes: this is when i tell you I love you.
open your eyes. open your eyes. open your eyes. open-
“Ma’am, would you like some more coffee?” a seventeen year old waitress. A nosering insolently flashing. She could care less. Her shift is almost over. She’s got her eye on the clock and her mind on the boyfriend.
“No thanks.”
I slap down twenty shekels and gather my stuff. Another wasted evening at a sidewalk cafe in Tel Aviv. Another story not written, progress not made.




Part II: Stolen
don’t take this so personally, the burden could be heavy - I am a lover and a poet and I ooze with the words / You’ve stumbled upon me and awakened my senses, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not being heard / I realize you’re human – an imperfect one, sure, but still you inspire with your smile, and your eyes / I’m just a hormonal she-dog chock full of emotions, but our connection is solid, so let me rhapsodize)
The scent of your skin is still in my nostrils: raw rain tumbling down on a grass covered slope.
I tear through the park on my bicycle, towards our private world in the bushes, fleeing from everything to what has become everything.
I’ve set the world apart and live in memories of you that are the tank of oxygen in the drowning underwater between our encounters. They come back to me now, little bubbles rising to the surface:
How you looked as I loved you, how you silenced me softly, placed a finger on my lips, said “that’s redundant, now, isn’t it”, then with a half smile you turned and you folded me in.
How I visibly shook when our fingers made contact, but I didn’t bother hiding it: it seemed quite all right / I smile as I remember your touch on my back – it felt like an invitation to dance through the night / And as my mouth tasted of your sweet center, I shuddered, knowing now we are speaking, now this is it.
I told you of hunger, and of yearning, and silence, and of years in which self love was abolished by shame / My fingers spoke volumes of compassionate friendship, of the true understanding when you called out my name / My kiss was explanatory – your response revealing; and so we indulged in the dialogue of love
I get off my bike: here we are, at our spot. Enevloped in the softness of alternative reality, between bushes of green in a gray gray world, we have found an existence that is separate from all. Once again memory takes a back seat to reality: here we are, once again, between ticks of the clock.
At your touch my tides rise, my defenses collapse: I let you inside and I sigh with relief. This is all that I need, this is all I must keep.