There is no Life or Death,
Only activity
And in the absolute
Is no declivity.
There is no Love or Lust
Only propensity
Who would possess
Is a nonentity.
There is no First or Last
Only equality
And who would rule
Joins the majority.
There is no Space or Time
Only intensity,
And tame things
Have no immensity.
(Source: hookedonsemiotics, via jsykes)
Dear John,
Google my greeting.
The end.
Thinking back,
He didn’t really look to the world around,
cocooned as we were within ourselves.
Too busy spinning a safe haven to look at the books and the films and the things
that probably don’t matter much. To anyone
but me.
Too busy to glance at the pictures on the wall
and the stories that they tell - for stories, I love! And the telling of them all.
Too busy to look at anything,
but me.
Still, the fragile silk of our shell could only hold for so long,
and a butterfly needs spread its wings eventually.
Admiral as his behaviour was, we had spun into an orbit of our own,
Pulled by gravity into a realm of the fancy-free,
like those who see butterflies only as beautiful
ignoring the insect we truly see.
Joe was an apiarist. (A keeper of bees.) “It’s not a profession for apiar-ing around.” he’d joke, “with so many beings to keep up.” He was so pleased at his clever little combination of irony and pun and Anna would only roll her eyes affectionately. She thought that it wasn’t really a profession at all, considering Joe professed to know so little (“I’m just bee-ing myself,” he’d also joke, trying to kiss her through the mesh of his suit.) and would refuse to receive tender in exchange for his tender prize of honey.
Joe refused to call her honey. “You are not a by-product of a colony of insects, nor a health product to be consumed at excessive prices. You are Anna.” (He would also occasionally joke – so unlike him - and call her his manna, though that was more of a poke at her being the breadwinner of the two, rather than anything more complimentary.)
Anna, rather not feeling like a manna (or even a honey!) when she spent time with Joe, found that eventually their punchline had run flat. The timing was all out and nobody was laughing. Anna and Joe parted. He couldn’t help but sadly note the similarities between the split in their friendship group, and the split in his hive as they swarmed, taking old queen with them.
Anna had always had a power over people, but she soon realised her new-found single life came with a new control: “Shall we go to the cinema?” She asked, and her friends would drop dates and family agreements alike in order to spend time with her – and, for a while, she truly did feel like manna, though the feminine kind, the stuff heaven was known for. At the cinema, she met Matt.
Anna really liked Matt. He was really serious about her and, for a while, she thought he was the bees knees; he thought she really sweet, calling her honey and treating her like she was the delicate little flower she wished she was. Then Matt saw the relationship she had with her friends, and began to see Anna as something a little more ugly, like the examination of butterflies in a microscope and realising that they are insects after all:
“You’re just a queen bee, aren’t you?” He cried, “Enjoying your little workers follow after you, doing everything you do!”
There was truth to his words and Anna saw that she must change. Angry, she didn’t give him the gratification of knowing that. Instead, she said:
“You obviously know nothing of bees!”
Joe soon learned to call Anna his ‘honey.’
It would probably not be original,
or novel,
to note that the etymology of crush is probably somewhat linked
to the feeling post This Feeling
of being ever-so-slightly bruised
and of having survived an encounter that was both perilous
and a lot of fun.
“You mean something of the world to me.”
(and I mean something more than that)
but here we are, hemispheres apart
and I have lost my way.
Worse: I have slipped far out of orbit,
so I will sew the night sky in your jeans,
where you can look to your northern star -
far into the black (seems so far)
Yet: here I am.
Head by your knees, calling to help me
(please.)
In space, nobody can hear you
call and beg (and scream.)
My only constellation is,
the scope for horror here is limited
to a bad week
(or two)
before I weakly stand before you
and proclaim:
“I’m fine,”
and
“You mean something of the world to me.”
and
“I love you.”
