Dare
She says: Do not love me for my mind,
She says, one day, I shall find the place
Where thoughts begin. I shall trace
Their origins back to some foreign shore.
For they are so sure – see how effortlessly
They connect with what has gone before:
See how fluidly they run through me,
I feel this so strongly: that they don’t belong to me,
Do not dare to love me for them.
She says: Do not say you love me for my soul,
I do not know the shape of it, and nor do you.
It is neither true nor false, nor this, nor else
More, it is a hole in the world that pulls all
Into itself. I stole it, fire from the Gods,
The day I was born. And I have shorn
Away its little thorns and inconsistencies, until… until…
Until…
It is not the me that I let you see.
It is neither mist nor matter.
It is antimatter. It doesn’t matter.
Do not dare to love me for it.
She says: Do not love my body,
this skin-mesh, pink flesh-blanket,
into which I’m sewn, is no more nor less
than the cushion for my bones. It’s the only thing I own
but never asked for. It won’t last for long.
Do not dare to love me for it.
She says: Don’t dare talk of loving me.
I won’t believe it, no more than I believe in myself.
He takes her hands. He says: You go too far.
He says: Sometimes some things just are.
He says: Don’t ask me why I love you.
He says: Don’t ask me where it comes from.
He says: It would be like asking where Sky ends and Space begins.
He says: But I love you.
Her eyes are full of tears. She says:
How dare you?
How dare you…?
copyright: ©Tony Keeton 2009
