Driving To Dallas

There is no pretending I don’t need you.

My passion driving

            Like an Audi at eighty-five miles.

I won’t pretend I’m not being consumed by need.

I again turn to him

            And he cared for me,

As I cared for his needs

            When he was broken,

And he took me in

            Knowing of my need.

There is a long history there;

            We are not lovers but friends who love.

I won’t need to pretend he is you.

No tears this time will be shed -

            We retreat to his bed.

Not lovers,

            But friends who love;

He will shut the world out

            As we fall into his bed,

So familiar as when it lay

            Beneath his parents’ bedroom,

And he raised his passion

            To meet my desperate need –

I had immediate need of you

            And he filled it.

There is no pretending.

And as hunger and hope emptied,

            He filled that too.

For this time, my dammed need

            Is allowed to set our rhythm

And he allows me, passion

            Releasing and releasing again.

Exhausted, we laid entwined

            In his arms and long legs.

There is no pretending they are yours.

            Not lovers, but friends who love.

But as he slept, still driven by you,

            I rose & purged myself of him;

Purged his sweat from my body,

            My body of his food,

My mouth of his taste,

            My core of his seed.

Purged it of everything that was not you

            And then, stripped again to my essence

I again returned to his bed;

            His arms habitually enfold me.

Not lovers, but friends who love.

There is no pretending they are yours.

He did not take offense,

            Even knowing as he did

The precautions I took – filling my womb

            Inhospitable to his seed.

We are not lovers.

In the morning

            He will rise above me again

Aware that, heartbroken, passion unmatched

            Will drive me again without reason.

On instinct, on impulse;

            It will not be safe.

The day must be met

            But not alone – My layers fall,

Peeled away and our rhythm again

            Is paced by my incessant need.

He will console my desire again

            And then feed me as you will not,

Take me back into his life for that brief time

            Then let me drive away.

We are not lovers now

            But friends who love.

There is no pretending he is you.

We are not lovers. Now.

Ariel

Aug 4, 2005

This is both a Tiger & a Stranger poem.

State Street, Salem, Oregon -photo form city archives,
color-editting by CC Willow