The Fulcrum
This labyrinth of love has one inevitable end.
The Fulcrum
I’m not as certain or hopeful as I once was, about anything.
Wishing the best—
Willing it
Love was
overlooking the obvious
staring me down from the
dark side of the moon.
Anymore, love is the one who holds it all—
the fissure in my heart.
The width of my love.
If I could even call it mine— this erotic love, longing love, sisterly love, this sometimes so young love.
I’m surely not one to pontificate,
as if I ever met love properly.
I’m one of those birds who stumbled out of the nest
unsure of myself
fumbling into adulthood
filling in the gaps by pretending.
Love as safety, love as security
admiration
obligation.
Approval is a superb substitute for belonging when
intimacy menaces.
My limping love has tripped more than myself,
and I regret it.
With only two left legs,
steadiness couldn't bring me anywhere I intended.
Always
Circling
Back
To the same center of Self
I never could occupy fully.
Speaking voraciously for love's sake,
painstakingly so
still lost at the center
unable to wake up inside a lucid dream.
I’ve collected talismans as echoes of love and it’s many textures—
love's many attempts at finding itself.
Even the cursed ones, I kept,
to remember the more distorted textures.
Don't forget— Be no fool to love and all its wishes.
Those, too, have their own sweetness.
Are not attempts at love
something like love?
Is not a baby suckling for nourishment
a kind of promise?
Survival is its own spell—
and I do believe in magic.
A cauldron of despair for a hungry child
may be soothed by the sweet milk of delusion.
That’s a love spell, and I stand by it.
Do you know how many crying children there are
hungry and hopeful, wearing suits to their corporate jobs?
Seeking God in their lovers bed
or worse, a Church?
Panicked to hold on, crying out.
Certain, punishing, bitter, betrayed.
Too dignified to notice we are all just hungry for
The Great Mother's Breast.
Don't you see how many
shape shift to keep their
glimmer of nourishment—
Opening their mouths at the touch
of a hand to the cheek?
"Could never be me."
So confident in our destain.
Ah yes, the talismans.
My reminder of my own human hunger—
May I never forget.
Speckled Jasper, answers from a starving crone.
A mood ring, the deepest blue.
A glass necklace, clear and rainbowed, like my now-distant gaze.
A silver band, the one I said I wanted.
A rose ring without a diamond, lost like my innocence.
Despite my best attempts
Love will not discriminate.
She keeps including, including, including.
How tiresome, her insistence.
The rib cage holding the hummingbird in my heart.
The secret place where I hide in plain sight.
Tenderness wrapped up in bitterness
an ice sculpture so carefully carved.
If it wasn't so goddamn transparent you'd mistake it for the real thing.
The pulsing knowing at the center
Just
keeps
including.
The reverb of every lovers gaze right here in my chest.
Filling out the space between my shoulders,
no slipping or gripping as my body stretches to fill out the form—
Wings like these don’t trust until they are
already flying.
I am broader now.
Disappointed,
not deflated.
My breath fills &
I wonder if I’m full of hot air...
Is it a bypass to call this good?
Being breathed requires nothing of me...
My breath?
My lungs?
My love?
Emptied only to be filled
then emptied again.
I've done nothing to make this so.
Might this mammal body include more than “mine?”
I’m not afraid of the dark anymore.
Undeceived by the light of my own imagination.
Indiscriminate hope and all of your harmful charisma
Where were you intending to go?
What did you imagine you would find?
Life kept her oath
Even when I couldn't.
Eager hopefulness and the innocent promise of love spells
tracing the circumference of possibility—
This labyrinth of love has
One inevitable end.
-Madison
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