My tradition has been to commence most calendar years with a poëm. This year I was working on a new creätion, but it has been much delayed due to my ill-health. My significant-other and I mutually agreed to end our affinity at the beginning of August last year (2024). I was heartbroken. However, as these matters do, with time, my emotions gradually stabilised. My last full day of weeping was in November. I have shed the odd tear since. Nevertheless, for the most part, I have overcome the loss. I shall always hold my friend dear in my heart, as I do all my past friends & lovers; but I am no longer in love.
In the process of recovery, there was a period of transition in which I was never quite certain of what my emotions would throw at me on any given day or indeed time. I would have a few days of believing I was healed and then I would be hit my a fresh tsunami of thoughts, feelings & sensations coming at me from all directions and slamming down on me. It is this transitional period I have attempted to recreäte in poëtic form below.
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Emotional Maelstrom
how do I deal with this
emotional maelstrom
events feel incongruous
but what can be done
you will not open up
it’s not your custom
ardour
stirring emotion
a strong attraction
lamentably
the wrong attachment
in this see-saw
push-me-pull-me
affinity
fervid passion
initially
mutual sexual desire
lust
I must
have your body
“Hug me!”
you say
tho’ the oxymoron
“Don’t touch me!”
quite the conundrum
“Love me!”
you pray
you embrace me
post-coitus
then leave me
slinking away
shrinking
as your penile serpent
returning
to its iridescent
nest
just
like the viper
you repudiate
my validity
flecks of ice
stab my heart.
tingling
dismay
with excitement
my stomach churning
my forehead burning
thoughts & feelings
pulling me apart
tugging
one way
then another
hither
and thither
how do I start
to extricate
from the Gordian Knot
toss then ignore
the dice
or vindicate
accept my lot
this absurd
lovers’ paradox
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