I love you!    I hate you!  People are right
when they say that we rail at each other
like a couple who have been together so long,
they finish each other’s sentences
and can’t sleep if the other is gone.
It would be easier to separate conjoined
twins, yet you keep stepping out on me.
How do you think it makes me feel
to know you spread your love around?
All benefit, you say.  Learn from one
another, even become one another.  Talk
about a silver tongue.  You could sell
a fly swatter to a fly.  Learn, indeed!

I don’t know why I stay with you.  You
grab me and hug me tight, then toss me
aside without a thought.  You promise
to make me brilliant, then disappear
for days.  You keep me up ‘til all hours,
then shake me awake before it is light.
You vow to be mine forever, then run off
and have orgies with other writers.  You
are like Nature.  One minute kindness itself,
the next, a howling, screeching bitch
of a witch with razor-sharp nails and lightning
reflexes.  You blow me away, then drag me
through muck, then turn around and set
me gently on green velvet.  You shower
me with gifts, then fling some about and stomp
on others.  Since I was eight, you have  rocked
me and sung to me and helped me hide from
those who would hurt me.  Please, oh please,
tell me you will never fail to come home to
me.  That like me, you may run away, but you
will turn around and race back. I can’t think
about living without you giving me ideas
and taking me places I have dreamed about.
You give me tours of hearts, minds, and souls,
then hand me words to paint their pictures.
Despite you contradict yourself by turning
clear as a virgin stream, then being impossible
to fathom, you are beautiful to me.  I need you.
I think you may even need me.  Love, Phyllis
 

        (c)  Phyllis Jean Green, 2010