We need a manual...

I.
Always on my mind…
Innocence behind the bleachers,
Unbuttoned blouses and
Unzipped jeans.
Youthful passion rides
An unbridled mustang.
Every fair maiden awaits her unveiling,
With teen anticipation.
Every brave young knight
Doing whatever it takes
To slay the fiery dragon.

Ah, the world of the adolescent,
No money, no car,
A face full of zits.
Angst with an attitude,
Hormones in overdrive.
It’s a wonder any of us survived!

Miracles imagined,
Treasures concealed,
Something rare and mystical
In every post-pubescent body.
Every boy, an artist,
Sketching crude circles and triangles
In sweaty spiral notebooks,
Every girl an artist,
Envisioning that picture perfect
With precise details
From lips to fingertips.

True love only a date away.
Now that doesn’t seem too difficult,
Does it?
Oops!

Instruction manual not included!
What do we do now?
What do we do next?

Adolescent actions becoming
Ever more convoluted.
Innocence sidetracked
By Playboy Magazines,
Parental guidance ratings.
Found a copy of
“The Valley of the Dolls”
It’s true ,
Dirty words
Can make you squirm.
One of your friends
Is kinda cute,
But courage,
That’s a whole nuther can o' worms…


II.
Stripping clothes like they’re on fire,
Heavy petting at some clandestine park
With scenic view.
Steamy windows
Hint the attempts at intimacy.
Investigating backseat mysteries,
Breathless kisses become
Louder than
Cherry bomb
Heartbeats.
The scenery,
Meaningless.
Afterwards
Telling your folks
How great the view.
The image of underwear
Lingering like an aftershock.

And then everything changes.
We wax poetic,
Whisper words that defy
Logic or reason.

We pledge favors,
We pledge our very lives.
Love the obvious point
On the end of a very, very, very
Sharp knife.

But love it is, in full regale,
Shakespeare’s wit to make a game of it.
And in the proper scheme of things,
Romance makes perfect sense,
To dolt and fawn over
The guy or gal of your dopamine dreams,
Willing companionship,
Baby-making, and
A sense of belonging
Into our biological and social agendas.

A man takes a wife.
He gets a job.
He settles down.
A woman takes a husband.
She feathers her nest.
She bears him children.
This, the monogamous map.
Rhythm and familiarity
Working
For the first 10 years, or so,
But what happens
When things start breaking down?
What’s a body to do?
Most folks don't know.

Do you?

When one no longer
Wants that love,
When boredom or the loss of trust
Smothers even the brightest of flames?
When everything that was
“Until the end of time”
Gets torn apart,
Then tumbles down to earth again?


III.
Tonight she lies beside you.
A goddess,
Waiting,
Willing,
Soft scent,
Supple skin,
A smile to rival the sun,
A sigh to melt the coldest heart.
No cliché left unspoken.

No secrets concealed,
At least not now,
Nothing suspicious.

This will be your time,
Your First Time.
There is no future here,
No past.
Diving deep into
These intoxicating waters
You become
Two dolphins playing
In a private pool.

Two together,
Shimmering reflections
Swimming in tandem,
Wrapped limb over limb,
Head over heal.
Linen sheets
Rippling in waves,
Bathing spirits entwined
In a thousand
And one
Sudden and sensual emotions.

Stroking hands and feet
Grasping, gasping,
Two hearts explode!
Two bodies explode!
Two minds explode!
Foundations shaken!
A most terrible joy!

And as
The world fades into oblivion
We see nothing but each other.
And know
What it means to be reborn.

And in the same breath,
We have become
As unwrapped presents,
A memory
Carefully tucked away
In a shoebox
On the top shelve
Of the nearby bedroom closet.

If only love were that simple!


IV.
We are seduced by our experiences,
Our expectations.
Like addicts, we are driven.
Driven to find something new,
Something better.
Yes, there is always
Something deep within,
A restless edge
That rivals even the best
Domestic arrangement.
We call this impetuous intruder,
Lust.

And we can’t help but feed the monster!

To watch love die
With all the strings attached,
Withdrawal
An ugly slumber,
Cold shivers,
Cold showers,
Winter nights
In Summer’s busted flat.
No one to remind you,
But you.
No one to pick up the pieces,
And your shoes,
But you.
No one to embrace you,
Or the moment,
To help you chase away
Those knife-in-the-gut
Flesh-eating blues.

Those blues that
Slowly occlude everything
Fogging each day into a choking grey,
Then brutally diffusing
Into an impossible black.

For richer or poorer
For better or for worse,
What a cruel notion!
For someone let or letting go
Forever in motion,
In between
Dreamscape and Dissolution,
Desire and Divorce,
Dependency and Death,
It’s going to take some time
To sort the whole thing out…

And I’m already out of breath!

The Perils of Love and Sex,
Impossible to fathom!




Michael S. True
6-27-07 last edit 7-22-13