Arcane Roses

“A wise girl kisses but doesn’t love, listens but doesn’t believe, and leaves before she is left.”

I hold a romantic image of myself as from another world. It is this self I fear to open to the world, because when I do give it, open it to all, it gets shattered. I have no defenses against pain, no hostilities.

Because I love you (you see, I do love you, you dimwit, my love engulfs you the way the sea loves a tiny pebble on its bed-and may I be the pebble with you, heaven permitting) I love the whole world and that includes your left shoulder-no, the right one was first and so I’ll kiss it whenever I want to (and whenever you’re kind enough to pull down your blouse a little) and that also includes your left shoulder and your face above me in the forest and your face below me in the forest and my resting on your almost naked breast. And that’s why you’re right in saying we were already one and I’m not afraid of this; on the contrary, it is my only happiness and my only pride and I don’t at all restrict it to the forest.