Don't Speak To Me Of Love, My Friend

( for k, especially)

 My mothers womb,

did i forsake

that precious morn

when i was born.

She sweated and laboured,

I gasped and cried.

life 

was our reward…

yet is it not  odd

that though

those wrenching pains

have gone,

a tenderness remains?

I embraced this life

like a lover besotted.

yet somehow

time

has never passed me by

she’s entered my soul,

opened my eyes

and made me cry-

for all those

forgotten,

humiliated,

dismissed

living in fear

and struggling

to survive.

This romance with living

has been a tussle

with anger and shame.

no carefree childhood

no frolicking youth

for me.

Too restless for my fathers lap,

too dauntless for my  husbands  breast,

these too did  i forsake.

the  old ache  returned

life blood  churned.

with each  bond i spurned

tears became rain..

yet new life surged

in me again.

I soared away into the ether

with little apart

from an intrepid heart

and  my bunch of dreams.

There we met, soul mates in outer space

chasing rainbows in an elusive race

carrying same ideals in tow,

both afflicted with a loneliness

only dreamers know has no redress.

an extra terrestrial connection was made.

we talked  till we cried  and down we laid.

feeling safe in each other’s arms

at last we nestled, indulged

in our bodies’ gentle  charms.

Still a shadow lurked

we broke out in  sweat

we smelt the familar threat

of asphyxiation

soul erosion

from bondage

and  devotion.

I recoiled in a  mili second

and sensed your retreat too.

and sensed your retreat too.

So let us not speak  of love, my  friend

and  then each other rue.

don’t look at me like that, please

i’m quaking in my knees

your  tenderness stings

clips my wings,

your compassion warms

my restlessness it calms

but this illusion of peace

blocks   vital arteries.

I know  how much we needed

that interlude my friend,

yet it is time we heeded

the call from the rainbows end.