Ache of Longing

Longing

Longing, lust, love - three petals on a single flower –
Adjacent, overlapping,
Neither identical nor interchangeable,
Yet anchored in and sprung from the same ground.

       It’s longing that makes, and keeps, us human
       Or so I often think,
       That yawning, aching chasm twixt needs, desires, and life.
       How human can I be?

Longing, lust, and love - a caged trinity. I can control them – have so far, you know.
One glance from thee, and caged they stay, so long as ever is required.
A different glance, and out they’d spring for full examination
A thought both wonderful and somewhat frightening.

       Do you know how I wait for you each dawn, watch you enter the studio,
       Your hair snugged up bun-wise, face happily warm from recent sleep,
       Everything functional, but only just?
       Watching you come fully alive and into the moment as we begin
       Is a wondrous, sensual, private thing - a special joy, my privilege and honor.
       In class, I choose my spot based on your location,
       Pace my entry into poses as if studying how my body works this day,
       But really making certain I can see your throat and arms
              when we bend backwards.

Do you know your finest feature is your skin? Your back and shoulders the palest latte.
Perfect - its color, texture probably unknown to thee,
But I could gladly drink it, dive in and swim in it, if only.
In wrapping round from back to front, how it changes! Sweatshirt off,
Your arms extended upwards expose an undulating plain of subtle curves
Where walking on my lips and tongue I’d gladly spend a week exploring.

       Your skin – silent beneath it move your shoulder blades, symmetrical, beautiful.
       It flows over them like the thin layer of sand carried just above the desert floor
       By the wind, molding all that lies below with absolute perfection.
       This practice we are in calls out precision, balance, above all concentration –
       Your bottom, “padding” as you call it, so thin from front to back
       Is dangerously distracting. As if your backs of knees and inner elbows
       Were any less so!

Oh, yes - I choose my vantage point with care.
The rare hot, humid summer days are special;
Hard-working at ropes or wall, the vagaries of wind from ceiling fans
Grant intermittent audience at your special, subtle scent –
Just a trace - vanilla? Maddening. Perfume? Sweat? I’d much prefer it be the latter.

       My joy at shorts and muscled calves occasionally on view -
       At teeth, and tongue, at eyes both dark with concentration, bright with joy
       At pearlescent toenails, ankle-beads –
       And glimpse of silver ring, center of the universe, another teaser for the tongue,
       Guarding the deep-set well of navel so close below. What else?

What else indeed!
To talk at such a closeness I can feel your breath.
Exploring minds, layer after layer, delving,
Like moving through Earth’s own history.
So different, so new, such beauty and such strength.
If there be erotica in the world, it’s HERE,
In this mind I see unfolding now before me.

       What else indeed!
       Fifty times in every class, two hundred more through every day
       The thought of joining souls occurs to me. More than occurs.
       Bodies, though, we need them, for souls do not with souls commune.
       Joining then through eyes, through lips, through fingertips, and all,
       The body’s finest hour is when it brings two souls together.
       But yet I wish…. For what? Perhaps
       Full blending, as two holograms projected onto a single point
       Together simultaneously fill the selfsame space.

What else indeed!
The purest longing’s in the contact we do ourselves allow.
Partnering in poses? Touching for instructional purposes only? My ass!
My fingers would leave glowing trails visible only to thee and me, but no less real for that.
Comparing hands requires touch, full palms together, belly in my throat, good God!

       Watching at the end of class your auburn hair exploding
       As you set it free, your smiling sideways glance can instantly undo me.
       Two hours’ class - and now for relaxation?!
       Lying Christ-like on the floor, eyes closed, fingers touching. Accidental, surely?
       Why then your fingertips on mine for thirty seconds ere they move away?
       Side by side we lie midst too much company, seeking inner quiet.
       Ten minutes’ silence, three feet a full eternity.

Soon, not soon enough, your hair beside my shoulder as we walk the street,
The sunshine makes it a corona like Sol’s own,
But visible to the naked unprotected eye.
Safely visible? Of that I’m much less certain.

       Have you any idea the longing I suppress
       By not wrapping an arm around you as we walk?
       How hard not to suggest brief detours into deep-sunk doorways
       Of businesses not yet open for this day? So many doorways!

Sitting at our table, still aglow, I’d protect you, too – if only you required it, but no.
If I’m not needed as protector
Then I’d happily be your bagel. Bits of me could snuggle to your soul,
Explore thee from that best of vantage points, within.

       What crazy, random process brought thee and me into this single orbit?
       And if not random, then do we what? Curse malevolence, bless good fortune?
       No choice is necessary, but the thought intrudes.

Damn, then, this dance to which we seem constrained.
Damn other people’s prying eyes and thoughts
But above all and twice over damn
Ourselves! Who cares what other people think?

       Are thee and me, perhaps, a mirrored pair of primal forces
       Separated by a singularity, a hole both black and white, depending on one’s view
       Through which we each could flow, losing our selves to explode
       On the far sides, in one-another’s universes?

If there be no such explosions, what might suffice?
A single candle’s light would do
If by it I could sit and watch you, sleeping, breathe the night away.