I was 23 in 1989, she was 36. She was awful to me. I was obsessed with her for the next 10 years. I slept with her once again in 2000, for old time's sake.
Here she is in 2017, at age 66. Photos from a local writers' group meeting.
She's repulsive-looking now! What if she'd wanted me back when I was 23, and I was stuck with this today?
Back when I was 23 and a virgin and she was 36 and an ex-con skank, she was very attractive, physically. And she painted and wrote, which was attractive on the surface. But she painted and wrote very badly. An example of her "verse": "...if at all I hear the call, juice brings me like a bull." This type of thing she would "read" at local gay clubs. It was just constantly stupid. I tried to be supportive (I designed flyers for her "performances," etc.). At the end of it all, I got dumped in '91. Didn't get over it for 9 years. When I look at her and think about her now, I'm repulsed. But... back in the day I had mightily profound feelings for her.
A 1990 poem I wrote for her after a weekend at the Texas coast:
Water Signs
We stood and watched the waves --
the gray maze of our unknowing
swirling below our boots and beach-coats
twirling in the wind
Such whiplash sand -- our gale-torn faces
bled dry but for the frothing whiteness
on your lips and at the edge of where
the sea had dared to go
Given such boundaries, I choose
the warmer shore to drown by -- your mouth,
no eye to my erosion from your force:
I wake, I want -- my fear washed
in the whirlpool of your certainty
And I say I have never been sure,
so sure as this moon-locked tide
that pulled us 'til we met and swept
the distance out to sea.
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And a 1992 poem I wrote for her after our breakup:
Melting in March
I
In the winter things congeal and drops that started apart
(but weren't always real) freeze together briefly, order
winter's waste, prove creation possible out of once
dead gray. (The world shimmers and winks, lit by pale thighs,
the glow of stars atop tinselled trees. No resistance to this, or
if there is: "It's Christmas...")
It's the melt of this that takes me away, the last mush of
Valentine's Day, squish of my fists, velvet hearts soon to
crack in the long dry stretch. Such months need no holiday, fade
to sameness under scorch of sun, dumb leisure for the one who
wanted less.
II
Cracking doesn't work. Crying, once cure, degraded to last gasps;
I gag to show how much I love, shut down on knees before basins
porcelain and pristine, not the murk and mold of my own bowl.
More subliminal, she wipes my ashes clean, asks me to lie
beside her, blames me for a lighter
I did not take. Misconception is criminal.
The way my eyes, your whiskey howl, precede fists and last pleasure.
Twisted face in full-throat lust, the must of deception,
throttled pardon hardened into
the capture you want, crass enchantment in its
last throes. You say I'll regret what I've thrown away -- how can I
lose the one who loses me.
III
But ask for the lawless to depart
and blindness of ages let loose the suffer
to pardon one most vicious and desired. Come unto me,
let mounting be desire and not impending
doom, construction of flounder in this
black pool, oh drool of nonsense and wisdom soon to wed and bed
in other constructs of forgiveness. Let no wanting be
the earthen hell, oh lovely threat, fangless wonder,
imagine the joyness of it. No? Oh YES, a miracle of
white skin, dress sliding off one shoulder, the whiteness,
the giveness of spring, new things in this, the kindest season
after all, the wine, and whiskey lips to sing, not howl, the
late-night call to ask, or whisper, not beg. Beg is the bludgeon,
the dungeon of love, the weak last encroachment that is no song.
Derive this, the drivenness, as past last, no trust, or
Christmas. To sing this well with eyes so wide, see her face
without fear, clear-eyed strength and smile. A gift.
A real Christmas.
IV
(In this spring the miracle is the certainty of small triumphs.)
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She really was a creepy, low-life person to begin with. All the verbiage devoted to her? I think I was in love with the new intense feelings --- obsession and being inspired to write. Today, not obsessed, I look at these photos and remember my old writers' groups in the '90s and am happy that this now-old, untalented person has found a sympatico local group that wants to listen to her.
p.s. Upon re-reading after two decades, I still think "Melting in March" is a classic poem.
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